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Arkansas Procurement Assistance Center
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it cost to be a client?
How do I get my Daily Bids?
Is Daily Bids the same as Bid Board? How do I log in to the Bid Board?
Why do you make me submit Monthly Activity Reports?
How do I submit my activity report?
Why should I be your client? What can you do for my company that SBA or SCORE
or SBDC doesn’t already do for me?
How do I change my company’s information in your database, such as if we
move, or if we add or drop line of products or services?
How do I get a DUNS Number and a CCR code?
How do I know if my bid-match "keywords" are set up properly?
How do I keep up with all this stuff? It seems like as soon as I figure it
out, it changes.
I want to bid on a solicitation but it requires drawings and specifications
that I can’t get. Can you help me?
In browsing your Web site for help in marketing to Arkansas agencies, I get
the impression you only help Arkansas companies, but what if I am located in
another state?
How do I get a GSA number? My
customers won't buy from me without it.
What is a line card and why do I
need it?
What do I do when I see a
Sources Sought in the bid opportunities?
What does it cost to be a client?
You already paid for our services in your taxes. There is no cost to you. We
do offer an optional Government Contracting Course (see the Education page here
on our site) which has a modest tuition and offers Continuing Education Units
for credit. But all of the workshops, counseling/consulting, bid opportunity
listings on both systems, technical assistance, library, and other resources are
free and open to the public.
How do I get my Daily Bids?
When you register as a client, and keep your registration active by
submitting monthly activity reports, the bid-match system matches the filters in
your client profile to over a thousand sources to identify the bid opportunities
that fit your interests. The system posts the results on your individual site,
and sends you a reminder e-mail that contains the link to that site. The link
might be a big blue button that says "View Bids" or it might be a hyperlink,
depending on how your e-mail system displays it. When you connect to that link,
you will see a chart on which each date for the past month or so appears, with a
row of numbers under headings that identify the sources of your bids. The first
time you view this page, you should save it into your internet browser "Favorites" or
"Bookmark" it so you can look at it any time, day or night,
whether you see the e-mail reminder or not. At the right end of each row is a "View" link, which reveals every bid opportunity the system found for you on
that date, listed in plain text format. You can scan quickly through this list
to find ones that might be interesting. You will see another "View" link beside
each one, which reveals the original document in its original format, which
might be easier to read. Sometimes, the document is merely an announcement and
contains yet another link to the full solicitation which you can download if you
like. Thus, you don’t have to download and read every single complete document
only to find that many are not interesting; it saves your time by giving you the
quick text list to select from. If you are not satisfied with the collection of
bid opportunities the system found for you, or if it didn’t find anything at
all, you should contact our office to have the search filters revised.
Is Daily Bids the same as Bid Board? How do I log in to the Bid Board?
No, these are two entirely separate collections of bid opportunities. The Bid
Board is compiled locally in our office by one of our staff who collects them
from numerous state and local agencies in Arkansas and posts them on a secure
Web page. We designed this Bid Board ourselves, so only registered clients can
see it. Our mission is to help Arkansas companies generate revenues and create
or retain jobs. We are not helping out-of-state companies compete against our
Arkansas clients. When you register as our client, you are given the User ID and
Password with which to log in. In this system, you can sort by one of several
categories, you can view only selected categories of bids, and you can search by
keyword to find what you want (none of which you can do in the "Daily Bids"
bid-match system). Since every city and county and agency has different methods
and requirements, these listings all look different, but we give you all the
information we can find about how to reach the customer so you can get more
information from them if you need it.
Why do you make me submit Monthly Activity Reports?
Because our funding comes from Congress through the Defense Logistics Agency
(DLA) and they require evidence that the money is producing results. Our mission
is to help Arkansas companies generate revenues and create or retain jobs, and
we need your report of sales in order to provide statistical results to DLA.
Without this proof, they will not continue funding our Center, and we will not
be able to provide you with the bid opportunities, counseling, technical
assistance, and other services that you rely on. You can submit your report
online any time that is convenient, not just monthly. Some clients enter each
sale as it occurs throughout the month; others compile all their data and submit
it on a certain date each month that is convenient for them. Clients that fail
to report their sales have their services suspended because we can’t prove the
results of providing the services. Clients that just fill in "No Sales to
Report" are questioned to determine whether it is true that they are not making
any sales at all because you can’t stay in business for long that way, and we
need to know if our service is not helping you in any way so we can correct our
deficiency. Some clients don’t realize they are to report all sales that
in any way resulted from our assistance, but if we never taught you anything at
all that helped you become capable of making the sale, you don’t have to report
it. If you sell to a company that in turn sells to a government agency, that is
reportable as a subcontract. If you sell to a school district, economic
development district, public utility, hospital, or any local operation that is
supported by tax money, that is reportable. When in doubt, report it, and use
the text box on the data entry screen to express your doubts. We actually read
these reports. And we post the statistical summaries on our Web site, where you
can see how your data contribute to the results we report to the government.
How do I submit my activity report?
On your "Daily Bids" site, in the menu across the top of the red banner, you
will find an item called "Awards," which has a link to the reporting screen. You
will see the list of awards you have reported previously, and you can select one
of two buttons, "Report Award" or "No Awards to Report." Make sure the correct
date is filled in, especially if you are reporting retroactively for a previous
month. Fill in the other fields, and select the appropriate choices from the
pull-down pick-lists for the type of agency and for prime contract or
subcontract. When you push the "Submit" button, it will automatically imprint a
certification statement that this is true and valid information. Within a few
days, your new report will be added to the list. You should report every sale
separately unless you have a high volume of small orders with one customer, such
as credit card sales, which you can batch at the end of the month into one
report and identify in the text block how many sales are batched. The word "award" means any purchase order, contract, subcontract, credit card sale, cash
sale, or other transaction. It includes delivery orders or task orders under IDIQ contracts such as blanket orders or Schedules. Some people would prefer to
submit the report on paper by fax or postal mail, and we can no longer handle
that; we need them submitted directly into the system from which we compile our
statistical report to the Feds.
Why should I be your client? What can you do for my company that SBA or SCORE
or SBDC doesn’t already do for me?
We coordinate often with other small business resource organizations, share
clients, refer clients to each other, and co-sponsor events with each other. You
might need all of us. The Arkansas Procurement Assistance Center is the only one
that does nothing but government contracting assistance. We focus on our only
purpose: to help Arkansas businesses succeed at contracting with public agencies
so as to generate revenues and thereby create or retain jobs for Arkansans. The
other organizations might provide some limited help with regard to government
contracting. However, we are the only one that has the depth of expertise in
this one specialty, and we don’t do anything else. In order to be a successful
government contractor, you need to have a Business Plan, enough computer ability
to use e-mail, information that we teach about the electronic commerce systems
required by government buyers, adequate working capital to finance your
operations until the government pays your bill and a year or more of "Past
Performance" references to prove your capability. For these types of assistance,
we refer you to the other centers and when you are ready, they send you back to
us. We share you instead of dumping you out on your own. Please review the rest
of our Web site to see what we do and what we don’t do, see what our clients say
about us, see the special information for disaster victims, veterans, and rural
companies.
How do I change my company’s information in your database, such as if we
move, or if we add or drop a line of products or services?
Just send us an e-mail and tell us what has changed. Also, you can view the
"Company Profile" from your "View Bids" site, and print it out, mark it up, and
fax it to us. We don’t let you get into the database to change things yourself,
because it’s such a complex system that a simple mistake can cause us extra
work. Your company profile document also shows the bid-match search terms that
we are using and you can have us change that too. We don’t make arbitrary
changes, so we need your authorization in writing, which can be e-mail, fax or
whatever. If you prefer to come by our office, we can show you your record and
you can tell us what information to correct. We also want you to tell us of any
socio-economic categories that should be checked, such as veteran-owned or
woman-owned, for example.
How do I get a DUNS Number and a CCR code?
We would be happy to help you with these registrations, which are
interrelated and are very complex. We recommend you fill out our online
Client Application and register with us as a client, so we will have the
confidentiality agreement and the necessary data that you will need. Then, we
can lead you through the 4-step registration process for federal contracting.
First, you must have or get an Employer Identification Number from Internal
Revenue Service. (Do not use your Social Security number in documents that can
be viewed by the public, as government contracts and registrations can.) Second,
you call a special desk, which is entirely separate from their traditional
credit reporting service, at Dun & Bradstreet to register with them as a
government contractor. Third, you enter your company data into the Central
Contractor Registration. Finally, you enter the rest of your company data into
the Dynamic Small Business Search that is SBA’s extension on the CCR. These four
steps must be done in sequence, and you must wait about two days after each one
before the next one will be ready for you. You must keep your CCR current at
least yearly, and you can update it anytime, which will extend its validity for
another year.
How do I know if my bid-match "keywords" are set up properly?
Ask us to run a test search, and we can tell you what it produced. We can
then try different variations to see if a change would do any good. We often
find that it takes several tries before it produces what you want. We can also
advise you about what to expect, such as if your line of business is typically
bid out only once a year by most agencies, so there will be long dry spells of
nothing to bid on before a whole bunch of annual contracts become available.
How do I keep up with all this stuff? It seems like as soon as I figure it
out, it changes.
Yes, that’s just what happens, and it’s very hard to keep up with. That’s why
we recommend you register with us as a client so you can get the Arkansas
Procurement Briefing (APB), which we send as an e-mail attachment every Friday
to registered clients only. It is not a publication and is not available to the
public. It is our way of talking to you and sending you current information
about new developments, special events, even bid opportunities for subcontracts
that may not be advertised or posted online. We often receive requests from
agencies to help them find vendors with certain capabilities, and we put those
notices in the Briefing. We have regular features, like Governmentese
Dictionary, which translates those pesky acronyms. Other features that we have
include, "Didja Know" about Arkansas trivia, a calendar that shows current
procurement-related events, and Future Events that you might want to attend. We
keep up with it for you, and we share it with you, as yet another form of
Procurement Technical Assistance. We need your feedback telling us how you made
use of the information in the Briefing.
I want to bid on a solicitation but it requires drawings and specifications
that I can’t get. Can you help me?
Indeed we can. We have a Procurement Technical Assistant on our staff whose
job is to search out these documents and help you get what you need. Sometimes
there is a fee, which you would pay to the owner of the documents, but at least
we can find out where you can buy them. Sometimes the documents are free but
there is a special type of software required to download them; we can help you
find and use that software, which is usually free. Sometimes, there is a
confidentiality document that must be signed before these documents can be
downloaded or a "Rights Guard" application procedure if the documents are
restricted by their owner. We can help you identify what it takes to gain access
to the documents.
In browsing your Web site for help in marketing to Arkansas agencies, I get
the impression you only help Arkansas companies, but what if I am located in
another state?
Go to the Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers at
http://www.aptac-us.org
and scroll to the bottom of the page where there is a map. Select your state and
wait a minute until it presents a list of all the centers in your state. Select
the center closest to your primary place of business and they will help you. The
90 or so Centers in this network all operate under similar contracts with the
Defense Logistics Agency, so although there might be variations in how we
provide the services, we all follow the same rules. Some of the centers charge
modest fees for some of their services, and some do not. Once you select your
Center, they will help you market your products or services to public agencies
nationwide, so you would not register with more than one. You can also browse
the Association’s Web site to find useful information and links about government
contracting.
How do I get a GSA number? My customers won't buy
from me without it.
There is no such thing as a "GSA Number", and it is not a simple registration
process at all. The number that your customers are asking you for is the
contract number on your Federal Supply Schedule, which is a complex, difficult,
indefinite-delivery-indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) type of contract that will take
months for you to apply for. Refer to our "Education in Government Contracting"
web page for information about our Government Contracting Course, which will
prepare you for this advanced contracting method. We recommend that newcomers to
the federal marketplace should not even consider this contracting vehicle until
they have a year or more experience in federal contracting transactions, because
the time and effort necessary to prepare the GSA proposal would be wasted if you
decide not to pursue the federal market after all, and because GSA requires a
"past performance" record in order to pre-qualify a company for this type of
contract. We recommend that you tell these customers that you will apply for the
Schedule if there is enough business to warrant the effort, and ask for their
estimate of future orders they would place with you, so you can decide if it's
worthwhile for you. Remember that the GSA Schedule is a contract for future
sales and it does not guarantee that anyone will order from you. Meanwhile,
offer to sell to them via "purchase card" or "Visa card" and ask what their
authorized limit is (usually $3,000 but sometimes more per order). Then focus on
customers that do not require the GSA Schedule until you can devote several
months of intense effort to compile the proposal. We will help you with it, but
we recommend you take the Course first.
We also recommend that you do not hire a stranger to do it for you until
you have learned what is involved. You will still have to provide the
content because it's your company and only you can say how you want the
company represented in the proposal. We have had reports from new clients
that they had paid a fee, sometimes several thousand dollars, to someone who
promised to prepare the documents and secure the contract for them. These
clients reported that either GSA rejected the proposal, or that the contract
GSA awarded based on the proposal could not be performed or that it would
result in significant losses or even that it was for entirely the wrong type
of work. On the other hand, clients we have assisted with it report that the
resulting contract has been successful. We cannot emphasize enough that your
decisions on this subject should be informed decisions.
What is a line card and why do I need it?
You need a one-page handout that potential customers can keep on file
to see at a glance what your company is capable of selling. The typical
format or layout of a line card has the company name and logo at the
top, followed by complete address and contact information. Below that is
a brief paragraph stating the company's capabilities, 3-5 lines. The
body of the page contains a list of the products or services offered. If
it's a long list, group them into categories to save space. Near the
bottom will be special characteristics of the company, such as
socio-economic categories, qQuality
standards, certifications, etc. The page is usually laid out in
"portrait" orientation, and is to be read flat, not folded like a
brochure. It is suitable for sending as an e-mail attachment as well as
for printing in bulk to hand out at trade fairs and opportunity
conferences, so should not be an expensive printing job. We request that
every client provide us with your line card so we can know what your
company does in order to provide the appropriate services to help you
sell to public agencies.
What do I do when I see a Sources Sought in
the bid opportunities?
The Federal agencies use this technique to perform what they call "market
research". They need to determine whether there are enough potential
offeroors to support competitive procurement, and whether there are enough
in any particular socio-economic category to restrict competition by setting
the opportunity aside for that category of firms. The Sources Sought notice
is a Pre-Solicitation Notice, meaning the specifications and bidding
documents are not yet ready to publish. It is very important that you
respond to the Sources Sought, providing precisely the information the
notice calls for. If you are not capable of providing the product or service
described, you need not respond. The responses determine the decision that
will be made about who is eligible to submit offers. If you do not respond,
the buying agency will not know to count your company's characteristics in
the decision whether to set this requirement aside. If you do not want them
to set it aside, you should let them know you are fully capable but not in a
setaside category. If you do want them to set it aside, you should let them
know you are fully capable and specify all the categories you are eligible
for. Your response does not commit you to submitting an offer when the time
comes, but it does influence the type of solicitation that eventually is
issued.
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