KEEP IT SIMPLE!

One of the most commonly cited reasons why small businesses do not become involved in federal government contracting is the paperwork.  There are so many rules and regulations that it is difficult for the small business owner to read through them, let alone understand them.  In addition, the rules and regulations are written by lawyers, and are often extremely hard for the manufacturer or business person to understand.  Finally, the regulations are written so that they will cover extremely complex multi-billion dollar procurements, as well as simple purchases from small businesses. 

GPO has solved that problem by developing its own set of boilerplate Contract Terms.  Contract Terms consists of less than 40 pages, and tells government print contractors everything they need to understand. 

In addition, in the Quality Assurance Through Attributes Program (QATAP) GPO has developed a set of quality requirements that are applicable to every job it purchases.  Those quality requirements give the printer a guide for what will be acceptable quality using objective standards.  This prevents the problem of having an agency customer simply say:  “I’m not paying you, because I don’t like the job.” 

Since the Government Printing Office purchases print, and since its vendors produce and sell print, the use of short and concise print-centric contracting rules allows small, medium and large businesses to compete, because they understand the language and the requirements. 

Businesses of the same size as many GPO vendor-printers could simply not function as effectively (if at all) under the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) which are applicable to agencies other than the GPO.