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OMB says the final rule eliminated 68 of the 72 individual requirements and eliminated 10,000 words of text.

I’m assisting with the drafting an RFP for software development and sustainment. I am wondering of a novel approach to implement "T-Shirt sizing" into the RFP so vendors can bid accurately, and we can manage the contract effectively post-award.

Specifically, how do you handle:

1. The Dev/Sustainment Split: Do you buy a fixed capacity (e.g., 3 Scrum teams) and use T-shirt sizing to budget how much of the roadmap they can deliver, or do you purchase "T-shirt points" on-demand?

2. Sustainment Guardrails: How do you prevent sustainment (urgent bugs, security patches) from eating up the capacity meant for T-shirt-sized feature development?

3. Sizing Calibration: How do you handle "sizing drift" post-award? (e.g., if a vendor bids a low price for a "Medium" but post-award claims every standard feature is a "Large" or "XL"?).

I would love to hear how you've successfully structured these RFPs, what pricing models worked, and any specific language or evaluation strategies you recommend. Thank you.

Thanks!

Mike

In my experience working with government contractors, that range still seems pretty common — but a lot of it isn’t actually coming from the processor’s markup.

Over 20 years ago, Visa and Mastercard created special interchange categories for government and commercial cards Level 3, large ticket, etc.) specifically to reduce costs for vendors — but those rates only apply if transactions are set up and submitted correctly.

I attached an older document from GSA just for context — the rates have changed since then, but it shows how these programs were originally structured and why they exist. Today, when things are set up correctly, we typically see government card transactions come in closer to the low-2% range, with large ticket transactions under 2%.

From what I’ve seen, it usually comes down to how the account is set up and whether the system being used can actually pass the required data.

Curious if anyone here has ever had this broken down for them, or if most of the focus is still just on the overall rate?

Sean-

GSA explanation of Level 3 for vendors (1).pdf

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So ... where do I find the Schedule? In what part of the contract should I look?

I am new to this community. My contract with the Federal government is being terminated due to the president's executive orders. However, I submitted a business proposal a few months ago and I would like to be compensated for the creation of this 12-page proposal to the federal government. In my proposal, I said the creation of the proposal would be $4000. Can I be compensated for this proposal even though the contract is being terminated?   

The contracting officer receives two offers and determines the most probable cost for each. The results of their cost realism analysis are as follows:

2) What if the initial award is under the SAT, but a later modification will bring the contract value over the SAT? Are there any issues with this assuming the cost/scope increase is justifiable? 

These are general questions and not regarding a specific procurement. These are based on 2 CFR 200.320, but I'd also be interested in FAR-based answers. My understanding is that these are grey areas that neither the FAR not 2 CFR 200 address specifically (please correct me if I'm wrong and let me know where they are addressed). However, I'm curious how others handle these situations. 

EPA Payout would be based on the lesser of the NTE OR Actual % outside of the tolerance band.

For example, if an NTE of 15% above the tolerance band (dead band) was established in a year where actual inflation was 21% above the upper limit. EPA payout would be the lesser of NTE or Actual % outside of the range. 

- A company has only held firm fixed price contracts, but a few years ago was awarded a contract that is primarily FFP, but has CPFF and Cost CLINs for Travel and Over and Above work

- Their accounting system is not setup in accordance with the SF-1408 or DFARS accounting system criteria

- The contract has the allowable cost and payment clause

I have requested a report on activity + invoicing on these CLINS. 

Questions:

- Are they required to submit a final indirect cost rate proposal (aka incurred cost submission) every year with activity on those CLINs? They have not

- How could this have even been awarded to them without an adequate accounting system? 

We have a substantial "unallowable" cost (interest owed to the person funding the company). While this expense is not included in my overhead or G&A pool, does it need to be included in my overhead or G&A base? 

Further, Blk 14F of the DD1547 WGL is for subcontracts... my takeaway is that there are those of us out there that do justify fee on subcontractors as not excessive.

ASK- Looking for scenarios where a sub adds value to justify the Prime charging Gov't fee for a subs work. 

For those who do not know what I mean:

Here is what the CFR says:

§ 200.306 Cost sharing or matching.

(c) Unrecovered indirect costs, including indirect costs on cost sharing or matching may be included as part of cost sharing or matching only with the prior approval of the Federal awarding agency. Unrecovered indirect cost means the difference between the amount charged to the Federal award and the amount which could have been charged to the Federal award under the non-Federal entity's approved negotiated indirect cost rate.

For example:  A company is awarded a federal award of $1,000.   The award is matched by a $500 state award.  The company has an approved and certified indirect rate of 30%.  This was approved and certified by the company’s Federal Cognizant agency.  The state recognizes that the company has a certified 30% indirect rate, but based on their own rules will only allow the company to charge an indirect rate of 20% to the state award.

Here is how that looks:

Federal award:  $1,000.  - $300 is indirect recovery

State award:   $500 - $100 is indirect recovery and $50 is unrecovered indirect under the states negotiated rate. 

In this example  The $500 state award is a match to the federal award.  The unrecovered indirect of $50 has the potential of being approved as a match to the federal award also, as these are still expenses the Company is paying in the performance of the award.  The company is just having to cover that 10% of indirect costs with their own funds.  In essence, for the $500 state award, $100 of indirect is paid by the state and $50 by the company.