The General Services Administration, or GSA, is a central buying authority for the U.S. Federal government. In order to make Federal buying more efficient and less costly, GSA identified over 12 million products and services that it regularly buys. It then divided all these commercial items into logical groupings, which they refer to as GSA schedules. In other words, GSA Schedules are groupings of like items that the federal agencies routinely buy.
GSA then created GSA contract solicitations so that commercial firms could submit an offer and negotiate a GSA contract. If a firm successfully completes the GSA negotiation (sometimes erroneously referred to as a GSA Application) it is awarded a GSA Contract.
What is a GSA Schedule Contract?
GSA Schedule contract is a five year, with three five year option periods. So it is potentially a 20 year contract with the world's largest client.
It enables your business to receive orders for products or services without the need to respond to each government buying opportunity with costly federal proposals and confusing federal contract requirements.
A GSA contract is agovernment wide contract, which means you can sell to any Federal agency. Without such a contract, you would need to bid on and negotiate with agencies separately
Many synonymous terms are used to describe the program, such as:
- GSA Schedule
- GSA Contract
- Federal Supply Schedule
- Multiple Award Schedule or MAS
- GSA Listing
- GSA Number
GSA Schedule contracts have become the contracting vehicle of choice for procurement officers. 
Obtaining a GSA Schedule contract enables your firm to be listed on GSA eLibrary and provides you with access to GSA eBuy, an exclusive database of requests for quotations reserved only for GSA contractors.
Countless firms have pursued opportunities with agencies and convinced technical staff that their product or service were great, only to be asked, "Do you have a Schedule?" If the answer is yes, those firms are in business; if not, they are out of luck.