Is federal contracting worth it for a very small company?

The band between the micro-purchase and simplified acquisition thresholds exists more or less for firms your size, and it is reserved for small business by default. Below that, purchases on a government card often involve no competition at all. Size is a disadvantage on large programmes and an advantage where most small buys actually happen.

How long from starting to a first contract?

Registration is weeks. A first win is usually months. The firms that get there fastest spend the first month reading the award record rather than submitting quotes, because it tells them which offices buy their work and what those offices pay.

Do I need a lobbyist or a consultant?

No, and be careful with anyone who says otherwise. Registration, code selection and quoting in the simplified band are things a shop does itself. Specialist help earns its keep later: large proposals, accounting system design for cost-type work, and compliance questions with real exposure.

Somebody at the programme office told me the work is mine. Is it?

No. Only a contracting officer can obligate the government, and only in writing. A programme office can be entirely sincere and still be describing something that will be competed, delayed or cancelled. Treat it as a strong signal to prepare, never as revenue.

Why did a contract I was told about never appear as a notice?

Most likely it went out as an order against an existing vehicle, which usually is not advertised. It can also have been set aside for a programme you are not in, or awarded sole-source with a published justification. All three are visible in the award record after the fact, which is how you find the pattern.

Course, module 1 of 16

How the money moves

Everything else in this course makes more sense once you know where the money comes from, who is allowed to spend it, and how long it takes to get from a decision to a contract. Start here even if you have bid before.

By the end of this module you will be able to

Explain how a federal requirement becomes a contract, and roughly how long that takes
Name the four steps money passes through before anybody can spend it, and why a delay at any one of them reaches you
Say who is allowed to obligate the government and who only sounds like they are
Read the shape of the fiscal year and know which weeks of it favour a small supplier
Recognise the share of federal money that never appears as an advertised contract at all

The three-year head start

A contract you see advertised today is the end of a process that started years ago. Roughly: an agency identifies a need, argues for money in a budget request, Congress appropriates it, the agency plans the acquisition, writes the requirement, does market research, and only then publishes a solicitation.

For a defence programme that chain can run three years. For a small services recompete it might be nine months. Either way, by the time the notice appears the requirement is written, the budget exists, the acquisition strategy is set, and very often the incumbent has been talking to the programme office the whole time.

This is not corruption and it is not a conspiracy. It is how any large organisation buys. The lesson is about timing, not fairness: the work that decides who wins happens before the solicitation, and almost all of it is published. Budget exhibits, proposed rules, sources sought notices, expiring contracts and sole-source justifications are all published, and almost nobody reads them.

Keep reading

The rest of this module opens with your name and email

All sixteen modules open on this device for about six months. No card and no password.

Still to come in this module

The four gates money passes through
Colours of money, and why an office cannot just move it
The fiscal year is the tide
The year, roughly
Who is allowed to spend it
Who is who, and what each one can actually do to you
Where the money actually leaves
The words in this module, defined
Questions at this stage