GSA schedule readiness
GSA readiness is a working checklist of what your company needs in place before it can offer onto a GSA schedule: the eligibility basics, the financial disclosures, past performance, what you are offering, and the administrative pieces that take longer than people expect. Each item carries a state, your notes, and the evidence you have gathered, and the screen keeps two numbers — how much is done, and how much is still blocking an offer. The checklist is your company's own copy: a Capture Administrator can tailor it in Settings, and when every required item is done an optional internal sign-off goes to the people who decide it, in the Approvals inbox.
This is preparation help, not approval
Axis Capture helps you get your paperwork in order. It does not approve, certify or pre-qualify your company for anything. Only GSA awards a schedule contract, and only GSA can tell you whether your offer succeeded.
TL;DR — Open Axis Capture → Set up → GSA readiness. Work down the checklist, setting each item to In progress, Done or Does not apply to us, and upload evidence against the items that ask for it. Where you have got to shows the share done and how many items must be finished before you can offer at all. When nothing is left, the sign-off is asked for in the Approvals inbox.
Before you start
- Fill in Company Essentials first. Four items fill themselves in from your company profile (see below), so a complete profile gives you a head start.
- Who can edit. Business Development Users, Proposal Managers, Managers and Capture Administrators can change the checklist. It is deliberately not limited to Managers: the person assembling the evidence should be the one who records it. Everyone else can read it.
The checklist
| Field | What it does | Accepted values / default |
|---|---|---|
| Two years in business | Can you offer at all. GSA normally requires two years of corporate existence, evidenced by financial statements; some categories have exceptions. | Required to offer. |
| Active SAM.gov registration | Can you offer at all. The registration must be active, not merely created, and it expires every year. | Required to offer. Filled in when your profile has a UEI — confirm it is still current. |
| UEI and CAGE code | Can you offer at all. Both identifiers are needed on an offer. | Required to offer. Filled in when your profile has both. |
| Financial statements | Financial. Usually two years, audited or reviewed depending on your size. | Required to offer. Attach them as evidence. |
| Commercial sales practices disclosure | Financial. What you charge commercial customers and the discounts you give them. GSA prices against it. | Required to offer. |
| Pricing narrative | Financial. How you arrived at your proposed prices. | Not required to submit, but it is what a contracting officer asks about first. |
| Relevant past performance | Past performance. Projects showing you have done this work before. | Required to offer. Filled in when your profile has past performance. |
| Past performance evaluation | Past performance. An independent evaluation; takes weeks to arrange. | Not blocking — but start it early. |
| Schedule category chosen | What you are offering. Which part of the schedule you are offering under. | Required to offer. Filled in when your profile has target codes. |
| Products and services mapped | What you are offering. Each thing you sell, mapped to the schedule's categories. | Required to offer. Filled in when your profile has target codes. |
| Labour category descriptions | What you are offering. For services: what each role does and the qualifications behind the rate. | Not blocking. |
| Digital certificate | Administrative. Needed to sign and submit an offer electronically; obtaining one takes days. | Required to offer. |
| Quality control narrative | Administrative. How you keep delivery consistent. | Not blocking, but frequently asked about. |
| Subcontracting plan | Administrative. Only required of large businesses. | Not blocking. A small business marks it Does not apply to us. |
Financial statements and the commercial sales practices disclosure need evidence: marked Done without a document attached, they still count as not done, and the score panel names them.
Item states
| Field | What it does | Accepted values / default |
|---|---|---|
| Not started | Nothing recorded yet. | The default. |
| In progress | Someone is working on it. | Counts as not done. |
| Done | In place. | Counts toward the score. |
| Does not apply to us | Not relevant to your company — a subcontracting plan for a small business, for example. | Removed from the count, so it neither helps nor hurts the score. |
An item marked Filled in from your company profile — check it was set for you from Company Essentials. A state you set yourself always wins over a filled-in one.
Where you have got to
The score panel deliberately shows two figures rather than one:
- How much is done — "N of M done", and the percentage of what applies to you. Items marked Does not apply to us are excluded. The percentage is rounded down, so it never reads as complete until it is.
- What is blocking — how many Required to offer items are not yet done. A company that is ninety per cent ready but missing a digital certificate cannot submit, and an average would hide that. When nothing is blocking, the panel says Nothing is blocking an offer.
The overall status
Beside the checklist, record where your company is with the schedule as a whole: Not started, Preparing, Ready to offer, Offer submitted or Withdrawn, and Which schedule or category you are aiming at.
Evidence
An item that asks for evidence has an Upload evidence button: the file is filed against your GSA assessment by the workspace's document service — scanned, versioned and searchable — and cited by the item. Cite an uploaded document reuses a file already filed against the assessment, and the cross beside a cited file stops citing it (the file itself stays filed). A file is downloadable once its scan has passed; until then it shows Being checked. See Documents, requirements and tasks.
The internal sign-off
When every Required to offer item is done — with the evidence it asks for — the checklist asks for your company's own sign-off: the people chosen in Settings (by default Managers and Capture Administrators) see it in their Approvals inbox. Whoever completed the last item cannot decide it; someone else must.
- Approved — the package is signed off and the overall status moves to Ready to offer.
- Sent back — the reason is shown on the screen. Make the changes, then press Ask again.
The sign-off is your company's review of its own paperwork. It is not a GSA decision, and nothing on this screen is.
If something lapses afterwards — a SAM registration expires, a certificate needs renewing — set the item back to In progress. The checklist re-opens at that point: a sign-off it had no longer stands (a request still waiting is withdrawn from the inbox), Ready to offer goes back to Preparing, and the sign-off is asked for afresh once the item is done again. An offer already submitted stays submitted.
Your company's checklist
A Capture Administrator shapes the checklist in Axis Capture → Settings → GSA readiness checklist — no code, no support ticket:
- Reorder items, make each required to offer or optional, and choose whether it needs evidence (none, optional, required).
- Remove an item that does not apply to your business, or add your own in your own words (a board resolution, an internal legal review).
- Switch the internal sign-off on or off, and choose who signs off: Managers and Capture Administrators, or Capture Administrators only.
Changes apply to the assessment in progress straight away, keeping every answer already given. An item added as required re-opens a checklist that was complete.
When Axis Capture publishes a newer standard checklist, a workspace that never changed its checklist simply moves to it. A workspace that did is offered it — Adopt it (replacing your changes) or Keep your checklist — and is never changed without being asked. Restore defaults adopts the current standard checklist.
Answers from before the tailored checklist
Assessments started before the checklist could be tailored keep every answer: the first change after the upgrade carries each item's state, notes and cited document into the new checklist, marked Carried over from your earlier checklist. Nothing is lost.
Common gotchas
- "SAM registration shows Done but ours lapsed." The item is filled in from the UEI on your profile, which proves you registered at some point — not that the registration is current. Set the item back to In progress until you renew.
- "Two years in business is never filled in." The profile does not record a founding date, so this one is always yours to answer.
- "Our percentage is high but we can't submit." Look at the blocking count. Every Required to offer item must be Done.
- "It says Done but still blocking." The item needs evidence and has none cited. Upload or cite the document.
- "I can't approve the sign-off." Whoever completed the last item cannot decide it, and only the people chosen in Settings can.
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