By Jon Olsen, KY APEX Accelerator Senior Procurement Consultant
This article was originally published in our monthly KY APEX Accelerator Newsletter. If you have any questions about this topic, your KY APEX Accelerator consultant is here to help! Not a client? Sign up here.
A common characteristic in government contracting is change. This is due in part to regulatory changes and updates, new statutes, system requirements and other technological changes and issues. After spending a career in the field of Federal Government contracting, you realize that change is inevitable, and you just learn to accept and deal with it!
Recently, we have been seeing and experiencing several changes in the Federal Government’s System for Award Management (SAM). Since SAM is one of my favorite systems and is required in doing business with the Federal Government, I thought it appropriate to discuss some of these changes and updates.
One recent change was the entity validation process, which was implemented in April 2022. The entity validation process is now the first step in updating or registering an entity in SAM. As stated on the Federal Service Desk website, the reason is that the Federal Government must ensure that they “have the correct legal business name and physical address,” and they therefore “need you to confirm this information by finding an exact match to our database.”
If an “exact match” isn’t found, more information or additional documentation may be needed to resolve any issues. The General Services Administration (GSA) continues to monitor and work on system improvements to make this process flow more smoothly. Additional information from the Federal Service Desk about the validation process can be found here.
Another recent change is the entity administrator role within SAM.gov. Prior to March 2023, the “Entity Administrator” could be anyone the company chose to appoint to that role through the notarized letter process. Beginning March 6, 2023, the process has changed, and entities must now manage their own roles in the system. What this means is that starting on this date, entity administrator roles must be held by company officers or other designated employees.
As stated on the GSA Integrated Award Environment (IAE) Interact website, “Entity Administrator roles can only be held by employees, officers, or board members of an entity. To enhance security, this change to the Entity Administrator role ensures the entity is in control of and accountable for who can update its registration in SAM.gov while allowing entities to continue to use service providers to manage their entity registration if they wish.”
If you currently use a third party to manage your SAM registration, this change will likely affect your company. You may need to review your account and take needed actions to ensure an employee of the company has the access rights they need to manage the entity registration. Further information about this change can be found in this article.
An additional adjustment associated with the recent update to entity administrator role requirements is the change in the templates to appoint “Entity Administrators.” The process for appointing new administrators, along with the revised templates, can be found on the Federal Service Desk website. Click here to read an article by the Federal Service Desk explaining current requirements.
For anyone interested in keeping up with changes to Federal Government systems and other aspects of doing business with the government, I recommend reviewing the following federal resource pages:
Integrated Award Environment (IAE) Interact Activity Feed
For assistance with these and other government contracting resources, the KY APEX Accelerator is a great resource to assist your business. The KY APEX Accelerator’s expert team of procurement consultants remain available and ready to assist Kentucky businesses in navigating the information and processes established for contracting with government organizations at the federal, state, and local levels.
If you are not sure how to connect with your regional consultant, you can request assistance by contacting us at kyapex@kstc.com or by registering as a client on our website.