Is a GSA Schedule the same as a SAM.gov registration?

GSA's page says it carries out the MAS program, also called schedules or Federal Supply Schedule. Under it, federal, state, local and tribal governments, and other eligible buyers, get commercial products, services and other solutions at good prices. For sellers, the page says a business submits an offer to GSA to become a MAS contractor. It can then sell commercial products, services and solutions at pre-negotiated prices. The page calls the contract a direct link to federal government contracts. The Department of Veterans Affairs carries out a similar program for medical products and services, under authority GSA delegated to it.

The Schedule is organized by special item numbers. The FAR defines a Special Item Number (SIN) as a group of generically similar, but not identical, supplies or services. They are intended to serve the same general purpose or function (FAR 8.401). GSA's page lists large categories. Among them are facilities, furniture and furnishings, human capital, industrial products and services, information technology, office management, professional services, scientific management and solutions, security and protection, transportation and logistics services and travel. Each has subcategories and SINs, and there is a look-up table to find the SIN that fits an offering. Every schedule contractor publishes a pricelist with all the supplies and services it offers and the pricing, terms and conditions for each SIN (FAR 8.402).

The registration comes first. GSA's page for a business that wants to become a Schedule holder says you need to submit an offer and be awarded a MAS contract first. Only then can you pursue opportunities restricted to MAS contract holders. It lists a seller's activities in order. They are: register your business; an optional step for a small business; get on Schedule, which it marks optional; market your business; research solicitations; respond to a solicitation; and what to expect next. Its registration step says that before you can compete for contracts with the government you need to register your business and obtain a UEI on SAM.gov. GSA's roadmap to a MAS contract puts the required registrations before the offer.

The registration stands on its own, in GSA's words. GSA's page on registering a business says that in most cases offerors or quoters are required to have an active registration in SAM. That is when they submit an offer or quotation, at the time of award and throughout the life of the contract. It says you do not need to pay a third party to complete your registration. So a registration is what the FAR asks of every offeror. A Schedule offer is a later and separate undertaking with GSA, which GSA's own roadmap treats as a choice to weigh first.

GSA does not say so. It marks getting on Schedule as optional in its list of a seller's activities. Its readiness assessment page says the assessment is designed to help you decide if a MAS contract is the right choice for your business. What a Schedule changes is how an order can reach you. Orders and blanket purchase agreements placed against a MAS, using the procedures of subpart 8.4, are considered to be issued using full and open competition. Ordering activities placing them do not seek competition outside the schedules or synopsize the requirement (FAR 8.404). That is what GSA's seller page calls opportunities restricted to MAS contract holders.

The notices a business can respond to without a Schedule are posted as contract opportunities, and those ask for a registration. How to find federal contracts says where the notices are and what to check before responding. Federal contracts for any business is where a business with no Schedule and no federal history starts. This guide cannot say whether a Schedule suits your business; that is the question GSA's readiness assessment is written for.

GSA's roadmap names the steps, and this guide repeats only their names. Before an offer, GSA requires its Pathways to Success training and a readiness assessment. The assessment is completed by a negotiator the company designates who is also its employee. Both are acknowledged in GSA's offer system when the offer is submitted. GSA tells an offeror to read the entire MAS solicitation, which it calls its formal request for contractors to submit offers. GSA says the solicitation details three things. They are the required elements of an offer, the evaluation criteria GSA uses to decide whether to award a MAS contract to a company, and the specific terms and conditions the contractor will need to comply with. Then come GSA's new offeror checklist, the required registrations, the information and templates the offer needs, and the offer itself, submitted through GSA's offer system.

GSA's page says how long that takes varies, so this guide gives no time. It describes no step inside GSA's offer system. GSA's required templates for an offer include past performance. Past performance when you have no federal contracts says what the FAR counts as past performance and how an offeror with no federal record is treated.

It cannot say whether a Schedule suits your business, what to offer or at what price, or how long any step takes. It did not open the MAS solicitation itself or GSA's offer system. So it quotes GSA's pages and the FAR and nothing more. It describes a Schedule only to keep it apart from a registration. Firmenza's work is the SAM.gov registration and its renewal, the step that comes first. A Schedule offer is a separate undertaking with GSA.

We complete your SAM.gov registration from your answers. A Firmenza specialist reviews your application. Firmenza's free health check reads the public record of any registration. Its contract opportunity matches read the public notices, the ones a business responds to with a registration and no Schedule.