This series of FAR summaries is meant to take a meaningful portion of the Federal Acquisition Regulations to ensure an easy-to-understand approach to maintain that readers comprehend the approach to doing business with the government and that the government exercises a fair and reasonable approach to doing business with the general public.
FAR 13.106-3 Award And Documentation
At the time of this post the simplified acquisition threshold is $250,000. It changes regularly. The following are steps your Contracting Officer is allowed to take if the buy is below the SAT. They have to do market research to show three competitors. They don’t need a full solicitation with full provisions and clauses but only an abstract of applicable information. They must explain why they selected a particular vendor (price or tradeoff). They don’t notify those who weren’t selected unless asked. Lastly, be willing to share information to necessary parties.
FAR 13.203 Purchasing Guidelines
The micro-purchase threshold is currently $10,000. Like the SAT, it changes regularly. Your CO merely must go to a GSA platform and use the government purchase card. COs refer to this as “hitting the easy button”. It’s your Uncle Sam’s version of Amazon. The only thing your CO has to do is justify the price as fair and reasonable or explain tradeoffs.
The SAT and MPT are partners as the procedures applicable to the MPT only are followed up to $10,000 and anything over that up to $250,000 must flip to SAT procedures. This protocol is in place to both make it easier for the CO and entice small businesses and their geographic, veteran, gender and Native American subcategories to participate and succeed.
I populated the VA’s schedules with medical supplies, medical services and pharmaceuticals. GSA Advantage and GSA eLibrary don’t just populate themselves. The program accumulated $17B my last year there and let me tell you that companies don’t just send GSA product catalogs without receiving the same treatment as an obligated buy. I made jobs easier for COs in the hospital who finalized purchases to the veteran as those COs used this FAR part’s guidelines for both market research and to purchase off of my contracts.
If you think I can help you then email nicholas.s.robertson@outlook.com for your introductory email and free consultation.
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