vendor registration | The Contracting Education Academy

March 8, 2021 By cs

GSA to verify identities of some SAM users after transition

New capabilities being added in May to beta.SAM.gov — the General Services Administration’s consolidated procurement website — will come with new, stringent security protocols requiring certain users to verify their accounts are connected to real-world people.

On May 24, the entity registration functions of SAM.gov will be moved over to beta.SAM.gov and the latter will lose the “beta” and become the one and only SAM.gov. At that time, GSA plans to institute new security measures for entity registration — voluntary at first but mandatory come October.

As GSA consolidates all of its procurement tools into a single site, the agency has been incorporating Login.gov as the single sign-on for all of these capabilities. When the System for Award Management, or SAM, registration functions are ported over, the system will take advantage of Login’s identity proofing capability for an added layer of security.

The identity proofing — verifying that an online account is connected to a specific, real person — will be for users who manage organizations’ SAM registration, which includes the unique identifier used to reference entities receiving federal contracts and grants and all the identifiable information about that organization.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2021/02/gsa-verify-identities-some-sam-users-after-transition/172216/

December 23, 2020 By cs

GSA’s SAM.gov will lose its ‘beta’ in April

The legacy SAM.gov will be shuttered and all the capabilities will be folded into the new SAM.gov, which currently goes by beta.SAM.gov.

The registration site for organizations doing business with the federal government will be migrating to the new central website for all procurement systems, allowing the latter to drop the “beta” designation and clear up some confusing nomenclature.

The System for Award Management, currently housed at SAM.gov, is used by federal contractors and grantees to register for the unique number used to identify the organization in official documents — similar to a Social Security number. The site, managed by the General Services Administration, shares a name with the agency’s developing central procurement hub, beta.SAM.gov.

GSA’s Integrated Award Environment program office has been working on consolidating all related procurement tools on a single website since 2018. The effort started with migrating the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, or CFDA, and Wage Determination Online, or WDOL, tools to beta.SAM, followed by two of the most-used acquisition tools in government.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2020/12/gsas-central-procurement-hub-will-lose-beta-april/170541/

April 9, 2018 By AMK

Paper submittals will soon be required of all SAM.gov registrants

Effective April 27, 2018, the General Services Administration (GSA) will be requiring each entity that wants to renew or update their electronic registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) to mail-in an original, signed notarized letter that confirms the identity of the account’s authorized administrator.

This comes as a follow-up to an announcement make about two and a half weeks ago that GSA is engaged in “an active investigation into alleged third-party fraudulent activity” within SAM.

SAM is essentially the vendor database of the federal government. GSA is in the process of integrating a total of ten databases within SAM.

At present, before a new SAM entity registration is activated, the entity establishing the new record in SAM must submit an original, signed notarized letter identifying the authorized “entity administrator” who is associated with the entity’s DUNS number. With GSA’s latest announcement, the notarized letter also will be required of all existing SAM registrants who wish to update or renew their record.

The alleged breach of the SAM database was identified by GSA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), and there is ongoing concern that vendors’ financial information and points of contact could be exposed. This creates risk that grant and contract payments could be diverted.

In GSA’s first announcement of the problem, GSA advised that “entities should contact their Federal agency awarding official if they find that payments, which were due their entity from a Federal agency, have been paid to a bank account other than the entity’s bank account.” SAM contains bank routing information on each entity. GSA’s advice was later updated to say: “If an entity suspects a payment due them from a Federal agency was paid to a bank account other than their own, they should contact the Federal Service Desk.”

The Federal Service Desk can be contacted by phone at 866-606-8220 (toll free) or 334-206-7828 (internationally), Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (EDT).

The notarized letter, on company stationery, is to be mailed to the Federal Service Desk. Details for the letter appear at: https://www.fsd.gov/fsd-gov/answer.do?sysparm_kbid=d2e67885db0d5f00b3257d321f96194b&sysparm_search=kb0013183.

Update: GSA has produced a template for the notarized letter. It is available at: SAM_Notary_Letter_Template_4.12.18_GSA_version

March 23, 2018 By AMK

SAM hacked: New vendor registrations require paper documentation

The General Services Administration reports that there is “an active investigation into alleged third-party fraudulent activity” within the System for Award Management (SAM).

SAM is essentially the vendor database of the federal government. GSA is in the process of integrating a total of ten databases within SAM.

The alleged breach was identified by GSA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG). GSA is concerned that vendor’s financial information and points of contact could be exposed.

GSA reports that entities whose financial information has changed within the last year are in the process of being notified and are being advised to validate their registration information, particularly their financial information. GSA’s notification process began on March 22, 2018.

An “entity” is any company, business, or organization who has registered within SAM as a federal contractor or would-be federal contractor.

In the announcement of the breach, GSA advises that “entities should contact their Federal agency awarding official if they find that payments, which were due their entity from a Federal agency, have been paid to a bank account other than the entity’s bank account.” SAM contains bank routing information on each entity.

New SAM registration procedures are now in effect, presumably temporarily. An original, signed notarized letter identifying the authorized Entity Administrator for the entity associated with the DUNS number must be submitted before a new SAM entity registration will be activated.

Update: GSA has produced a template for the notarized letter. It is available at: SAM_Notary_Letter_Template_4.12.18_GSA_version

Information on GSA’s work-around SAM registration process is detailed on the Federal Service Desk’s web site at: https://www.fsd.gov/fsd-gov/answer.do?sysparm_kbid=d2e67885db0d5f00b3257d321f96194b&sysparm_search=sam

June 10, 2016 By AMK

Opportunity knocks: Getting vendors in the door

One of the persistent problems anyone within earshot of public procurement hears about is a lack of communication between public buyer and supplier.

Smart Cville That disconnect can take many forms and happens at many different stages, including a failure to communicate with potential vendors when shaping requirements, a failure to clarify those requirements, and a failure post-award to work closely with the vendor to manage their performance. But all of those assume one very basic thing: That a potential vendor even hears about an opportunity. Never a safe assumption at any level of government.

Which is why it’s heartening to see a new trend in the public market, taking aim at just this problem. The latest example is a story out of Charlottesville, Virginia, in which a nonprofit called Smart Cville has built a “procurement alert system” for the city. Every time a new opportunity is posted to Charlottesville’s website, subscribers to the alert system will be notified.

Keep reading this article at: http://publicspendforum.net/opportunity-knocks-vendors-door/

New capabilities being added in May to beta.SAM.gov — the General Services Administration’s consolidated procurement website — will come with new, stringent security protocols requiring certain users to verify their accounts are connected to real-world people.

The legacy SAM.gov will be shuttered and all the capabilities will be folded into the new SAM.gov, which currently goes by beta.SAM.gov.

The General Services Administration reports that there is “an active investigation into alleged third-party fraudulent activity” within the System for Award Management (SAM).

One of the persistent problems anyone within earshot of public procurement hears about is a lack of communication between public buyer and supplier.

Search this Website