Everything, in the order it happens
The hardest part of federal contracting for somebody new is not any single fact. It is that the facts only make sense in order and nobody ever tells you the order. This is the order. Sixteen modules, each assuming the one before it and nothing else, written for a shop that has never done this and useful to one that has.
The opening of every module is open to read. The rest of a module opens with your first name, last name and email, and members read every module inside the product. Nothing here is legal advice, and where a regulation and a module disagree the regulation wins.
the same joined record carries the search, the price and the invoice
What this is
Part one: before there is anything to bid on
Where the money comes from, what you have to be before anybody may award to you, and how to be known while the requirement is still being written. Most of the work that decides who wins happens here, and most newcomers skip all of it.
- 1
Module 1: How the money moves
Where a requirement comes from, who is allowed to obligate money, how the fiscal year shapes everything, and why the contract you saw advertised was mostly decided before you saw it.
- 2
Module 2: Getting registered and eligible
Every identifier and registration, in order, with the step that stalls and roughly how long each one takes.
- 3
Module 3: Set-asides and the small business programs
Size standards, affiliation, the certifications, the rule of two, and the limitation on subcontracting that decides how much of your own work you must do.
- 4
Module 4: Finding the work
Every kind of notice and what to do about each one, plus the four things published before a solicitation exists.
- 5
Module 5: Vehicles, schedules and how orders are really placed
The part of the market that is never advertised, how to get onto it, and how orders are competed among the holders.
- 6
Module 6: Qualifying and positioning
Telling a real opportunity from a wired one before you spend a month on it, and what you may legitimately do before a solicitation exists.
- 7
Module 7: Teaming, subcontracting and flow-downs
Prime and sub, teaming agreements against joint ventures, what flows down to you, and what a subcontracting plan means for a small firm looking for a way in.
Part two: the bid itself
Reading the document, deciding honestly whether to answer it, understanding what the contract type will oblige you to prove, pricing it so it is both winnable and survivable, and getting it in.
- 8
Module 8: Reading a solicitation
The uniform contract format section by section, the order to read it in, and the clauses that decide what the work will actually cost.
- 9
Module 9: Bid or no bid
The ten-minute disqualifier check, the scoring worth writing down, and the good reasons to bid something you expect to lose.
- 10
Module 10: Contract types and what each one obliges you to prove
Fixed price through cost reimbursement, who carries the risk on each, and which ones need an accounting system before you may be awarded anything.
- 11
Module 11: Pricing and cost
Direct cost, the indirect pools in the order they actually stack, the wrap rate, what the record says the target is, and what you may be asked to certify.
- 12
Module 12: The documents you need
Every document a buyer, a prime or an auditor will ask for, which to build before you need them, and the per-proposal set.
- 13
Module 13: Writing and submitting
The compliance matrix, writing to the score rather than to taste, and the submission mechanics that disqualify otherwise winning bids.
Part three: after the award, which is most of the work
The debrief almost nobody asks for, performing and actually getting paid, and the compliance that decides whether you can do it again at a larger size.
- 14
Module 14: Award, debrief and protest
Reading the awarded contract against your own proposal, getting a debrief worth having, and what a protest really costs.
- 15
Module 15: Performing and getting paid
Deliverables, modifications, options, inspection and acceptance, invoicing, the limitation of funds clause, and the performance record written about you.
- 16
Module 16: Audits and compliance
What an auditor looks at, what an adequate accounting system means, timekeeping, incurred cost, and the security, quality and sourcing rules that take months to meet.
Read it once in order, then keep it open sideways
If you are new, read part one before you look at a single notice. It is the part that changes what you do rather than what you know, and it is the part that is invisible from the outside: everybody can see the solicitations, almost nobody reads the budget line, the proposed rule and the expiring contract that produced them.
If you already bid, the modules are a reference. Module 10 before you agree to a contract type, module 11 before you quote, module 12 the week before a proposal is due, module 15 the week after you win.
Every module ends with the FAR parts it came from, because the point is not to trust this page. It is to know which four pages of the regulation to read when the stakes are real.
- Each module assumes the one before it and nothing else
- Every table is a lookup you will come back to rather than read once
- The vocabulary is defined where it is first used, not in a glossary you have to go and find
- Every module says what to go and do in the product, on your own codes
counted over all of it, not over a sample
Short courses on single subjects, with a quiz and a certificate
Members read this course in the app under Knowledge, with their place kept. Beside it is a catalog of short courses on what a contracts, pricing, program or security department has to know, in five tracks: foundations, money, programs, security and intellectual property, and international work. Each is a few lessons and a quiz, and every lesson ends with where to do the thing in LastAwarded.
A quiz passes at 80, can be taken again as often as wanted, and explains every answer. A course passed gives a certificate of completion to print, which says plainly that it is not an accredited qualification. The owner or a manager can give a course to people with a day it is due, which goes on their calendar, and keeps a training record of who has done what, exportable to Excel.
- Truthful cost or pricing data, earned value, the cost accounting standards and more
- Negotiation, teaming agreements, data rights and offsets
- Cash flow, the color of money and program financial analysis
every state the same size, so DC is readable
If you would rather not start at the beginning
- How to win federal contractsThe short version of the whole course, in one guide.
- Your first 90 daysA week by week plan you can run alongside commercial work.
- GlossaryEvery term in a notice, an award record or a clause, defined.
- All the guidesOne question each, for when you already know which question.
The record behind every module in this course
Who bought it, who won it, what it went for, what recompetes soon, what the rules are about to require, and what your own number has to be. Every NAICS code, back to FY2001.