Past federal contract awards: what they show and what they do not

USAspending.gov defines an award's amount as the cumulative amount obligated by the Federal Government for it, which for a contract is the sum of the obligations on each of its transactions. An obligation is an amount the government has promised to pay because it has signed a contract or a change to one.

Two other amounts appear on a contract. The current award amount is the total obligated to date, including the base and any options exercised. The potential award amount is the total that could be obligated if the base and all options are exercised.

So an amount records what was committed on that contract, shaped by its scope, its options and its changes. It does not say what the same work would be priced at under another contract.

The period of performance start date is the date the parties agree will be the starting date for the contract's requirements, for the entire contract period. The current end date is the contract completion date based on the schedule in the contract: the base contract and any options exercised so far, revised when a modification exercises an option or shortens or extends the period. The potential end date is the end date after exercising any pre-determined extension options.

A search by time period on USAspending.gov works on action dates, not on period of performance dates, because award obligations are tied to action dates. A list of awards for a period can therefore include an older award that had a modification in that period.

USAspending.gov says its data are updated every day after its nightly data pipeline runs. Contract data from the Federal Procurement Data System are generally available within days of an award or a modification, except Department of Defense and Army Corps of Engineers contract data, which are published late.

Reporting has a minimum size, so very small purchases can be missing, and data can be late or absent for other reasons USAspending.gov lists, timing among them. An award record is the data as reported on the day it was read.

On a contract notice's page, Who did this work before lists earlier awards from USAspending.gov: awards under the notice's own solicitation number when Firmenza finds one, and otherwise awards by the same agency in the same NAICS code. Each shows its source, and recipient names are shown as USAspending.gov publishes them, with the line that credits Dun and Bradstreet for them.

Past awards for this kind of work shows a range across the awards it found, with the awards listed, and says it is public history, not a price to bid. In the market view, Who buys what you sell shows past awards for the NAICS codes in your profile: the agencies with the most dollars obligated, the number of awards with activity in the period, and recent awards. They are past awards only and do not say what an agency will buy next.

They do not say what to bid, whether a business would be chosen, or whether an agency will buy the work again. The amount to propose is a decision for the business, and a free counselor can talk it through: free help that already exists names who, and Contracts ending soon says what the end dates do and do not show.