I am fairly new at the pre-award acquisition process and would love some input on a recent acquisition assigned to my co-worker. She asked for my advice and I need help.
She was asked to prepare a solicitation for the acquisition of postage for a government agency. Currently there is a monthly fee along with the actual postage cost. There are six locations that currently purchase there own postage with a government purchase card and they pay a minimal fee. They have been notified that the fee is going to increase substantially, taking it over thresholds for each location so they are looking at combining all locations into one contract that covers the fee and the postage.
The postage amount will be estimated based on the prior year usage in order to determine the amount, so really we are just looking for the best value for the fee portion. My question is, since the actual postage is based more on usage, how much information do we include on the soliciation? Obviously this is a very simplified acquisition and because of the simplicity, I think we are all very confused.
Additional information- Based on research, the vendor would set up an online account and add money to it so that all of the sites can print postage as they need to but the postage isn't a cost that would be negotiated or have an actual amount determined because that portion would be based on incurred cost. The only thing to determine is what the vendor charges for the service.
Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas on how to proceed with this acquistion?