USASpending.Gov: Now Features Subcontractors

Best Free Research Gets Better By The Minute

I thought I was hallucinating: when I was doing a federal contract data search a few weeks ago, my query started pulling records based on a company name. Well, it's supposed to do that...but the company I was searching for wasn't ever a prime. 

My search found them because they were a SUBCONTRACTOR. "That's nice," I thought. "What changed? When did primes start collecting and publishing subcontractor data?" But I got busy and nobody else was pestering me for the answer.

Yesterday, I found out -- or, rather, was reminded! I'd forgotten that the Federal Fiscal Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA), passed in 2006, is finally hitting its implementation dates.

• Since July 1st, federal prime contractors have been entering data on all subcontractors on contracts or task orders worth more than $20 million.
• As of October 1st, 2010, they have to report subcontracts under federally-awarded contracts and orders valued at or above $550,000
• By March 1st 2011, USASpending.Gov will have subcontractor data for every prime contract and task order worth more than $25,000.

At the 25th Anniversary conference of the Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers, Adam Stansifer, Senior Consultant for IBM Global Business Services on GSA's Integrated Acquisition Environment project, explained more. Over the next three years, his team will consolidate nine different systems into a single portal called SAM -- the System for Award Management.


More about that soon!