Open Market Items under a GSA Contract order
Posted on Thu, Oct 14, 2010
New GSA Contractors often ask about selling items that are not listed in their GSA Schedule contract. Open market items may be sold to Agencies under a GSA Contract order, but you must clearly inform the customer that the items to be sold are indeed open market. This is an important concept to understand and new contractors often have problems with the GSA auditors if they do not manage this correctly.
What are Open Market Items
Open-Market items are also known as:
- Incidental Items
- Non-Contract Items
- Non-Schedule Items
- Other Direct Costs (ODC’s)
An agency (customer) may add open market items to an order. However, contractors must ensure that the customer is made aware of these items prior to the sale.
This is extremely important due to differing Federal Acquisition Regulations for Federal Supply Schedule procurements versus open market procurements.
Document that you provided this information to the customer prior to the sale in a written quote (simply put the term "Open Market Item" at the end of each open market line item) or email correspondence, as well as upon the actual invoice.
Schedule contractors should NOT include the value of open market sales when reporting the quarterly 72a sales, only the total sales of contract items.