BACKGROUND: There are forty-one GSA Schedules. Within each Schedule, there are specific categories; with a total of over 1,400 different categories. Each Contractor has a contract in a specific category, and there are over 19,000 contractors in total! More than $40 billion are awarded through GSA schedules each year. 80% of these contractors are small businesses, and approximately 40% of all GSA Schedule contractors win Government business. The average time to get on a Schedule is between 8-9 months. SHOULD I GET ON A GSA SCHEDULE: While there is plenty of money to be won on a GSA Schedule, sometimes this route is not right for everyone. The General Services Administration points out that their research shows most successful GSA Schedule holders should Have 2 years of experience in federal contracting either as a prime or subcontractor; have Contacts and relationships within the federal contracting community; invest between $80K-$130K to find and manage your initial government contract. The GSA has a very useful tool located at https://vsc.gsa.gov/RA/ to assist in determining if a GSA Schedule is right for you. IS MY COMPETITION ON A GSA SCHEDULE? If you have competition that is similar in size and scope to you, it could help if you find out if they currently hold a Schedule; and if so, are they winning with it? To find out who is currently holding a Schedule contract, head over to http://www.gsaelibrary.gsa.gov. From here, you can enter the name of any contractor in the search box. If they do have a Schedule contract, they will appear on the next page under"Contractor/Manufacturer matches". ARE THEY WINNING CONTRACTS WITH THEIR GSA SCHEDULE? This is probably the most important question. After all that work to get onto a GSA Schedule, is it worth it? To find out if anyone is winning with their GSA contract, head over to https://www.fpds.gov. FPDS.gov, Federal Procurement Data System, provides details on procurement data from more than 60 different Federal departments. To find out more about contracts won off their schedule contract, enter the schedule from the eLibrary into the ezSearch box on the FPDS homepage. Note: On the eLibrary, the contract was written like this: [GS-35F-0146L]. on FPDS, remove all the symbols. In the above example, we would search for this: GS35F0146L. FPDS TIPS AND TRICKS: Here is a short list of tips to help make the information on FPDS easier to use. If you only want to find new contracts won, no options or modifications, place this in the search box WITH your original search terms: MODIFICATION_NUMBER:"0"; To find out more about a specific contract, click (View) located next to the contract number; To find the newest contract won, click Date Signed on the right hand side. This will re-sort the results with the most recently won contract on top. KEEPING TRACK: Unfortunately, FPDS is very disorganized when it comes to keeping track of who is winning contracts on a regular basis. Aside from manually checking every day, there is no way to easily find out if contracts are being won in your field. Until now. GSA Watcher is the leading source for tracking GSA Schedules & Task Orders. Head over to http://www.gsawatcher.com and sign up for a one-week free trial, no credit card needed. You will have instant access to details on the latest contract for every GSA Schedule holder, updated daily.