The federal government values the role small businesses play in the growth of our economy. As such congress has felt that it is important whenever likely and possible to have the government purchase from small businesses sources through GSA Advantage portal. This increases supplier diversity and also provides an avenue where small suppliers can become big ones. GSA Advantage ordering system extends benefits small businesses desiring to do business with the government. The rules congress has written to favor small businesses towards this affect are outlined below:
Micro Purchases
The Federal Government made over $20 billion in Micro Purchases in 2020. In order for a purchase to be classified as a micro purchase it must be under the Mirco Purchase threshold of $10,000. If each of these purchases was at the maximum dollar value it would require more than 2 million transactions. There are a lot of opportunities for businesses as there are approximately 12,000 GSA Schedule Contract Holders, which are the de facto preferred small business, are GSA advantage vendors of the federal government.
GSA Advantage – Federal Online Super Store
The most likely place for federal buyers to go when looking for a good or service is GSA Advantage portal as they know that all the sellers on GSA Schedule, are setup to take Micro Payments almost always made with a Federal Purchase Cards a similar process once setup to a customer using a VISA or Mastercard.
FAR 19.502–2 – Just to quote the FAR
Total small business set-asides. (a) Each acquisition of supplies or services that has an anticipated dollar value exceeding $10,000 but not over $250,000 is automatically reserved exclusively for small business concerns and shall be set aside for small business unless the contracting officer determines there is not a reasonable expectation of obtaining offers from two or more responsible small business concerns that are competitive in terms of market prices, quality, and delivery.
GSA Purchase Size Information
- GSA Purchases through under $250,000 Bidding is not necessary.
- GSA Procurement between $250,000 – $2,500,000 Bidding is needed.
- Irrespective of the GSA purchase size, within 14 days a GSA contract is allotted, whereas conventional federal contracts take around 250+ days to get issued.
- About 80% of the GSA Schedule Contract Holders are small business
GSA Advantage Web Porthole
If you take a minute and visit federal GSA Advantage website you will better understand how does GSA advantage work in purchasing. At this website you will see that it is set up very similar to other online mega-retailers with the one exception that services are identified and procured off the website as well.
