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FAQ's
Q: Where does the data come from?
A: The main source of contract spending data is the U.S. General Service Administration’s Federal Procurement Data System – Next
Generation (FPDS-NG) contract data collection and dissemination system. Eagle Eye researchers add certain, key fields like Parent
Company and Congressional District to make the data more relevant and usable.
The source of the grant descriptions is the U.S. Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) which explains the purpose of each
grant, how each grant is administered and how to apply for assistance. The source of grant spending data is the Federal Assistance
Award Data System (FAADS) which reports on each grant transaction using approximately 14 data fields that offer details on the awarding
agency, the grant recipient, the type of grant, type recipient and a short program description.
Q: What does the data contain?
A: The data shows unclassified active government prime contracts, including
incumbent, buying agency, market, place of performance, and other socioeconomic
indicators, such as set-asides, and minority business status. The data has no
size limits, and will show all contracts, including Purchase Card acquisitions.
All government agencies- with the exception of Congress, the Federal Courts,
FAA, USPS, TVA, and intelligence agencies- are required to report to the system,
and their reported contracts are displayed within the data.
Q: What is the PIID?
A: The Procurement Instrument IDentifier (PIID) is the unique identifying code
for each contract action. Every contract transaction will have a different PIID-
this includes identifying information for the Agency, the contract number, and
the fiscal year of the action, among other data elements.
Q: What is the difference between the Company and Parent Company information?
A: The Company Name field is the name of the officially recognized recipient of
a contract. This entity could be a company, subsidiary or division of a larger
firm. It could also be a school, university, non-profit organization, another
federal government agency or even a state/local government.
Company names are almost always direct translations of DUNS numbers supplied by
Dun and Bradstreet through the GSA. A company can have many DUNS numbers, even
more than one at the same street address. Eagle Eye "rolls up" thousands of
company names each quarter to their appropriate parent company to enable proper
analysis of agency and company contract performance. Nonetheless, it is very
useful to be able to study the performance of individual divisions within a
parent company. Eagle Eye enables the analysis of contracts data
company-by-company as well as parent-by-parent in order to give researchers a
full sense of the context in which contract spending occurs.
The Parent Company Name shows the name of the organization that owns at least
51% of the recipient of a contract at any point during the fiscal period covered
by the CD. In the FPC application, the Parent Company Name is used to signify
the ultimate owner of a firm.
Tracking Parent Company Names is one of the most important ways Eagle Eye adds
value to the contracts data. Our research staff tracks parent companies
day-to-day and week-to-week. If a company's ownership changed during the course
of the fiscal year, the Parent Company assignment reflects company ownership
adjusted as closely as possible to the date the merger or acquisition was
finalized. Because Eagle Eye frequently has news of major mergers and
acquisitions before the contracts data through that period is available, we
often assign new parent company names to records released earlier in the same
fiscal year so that users have the must current intelligence available.
Eagle Eye assigns parent companies often after consulting several sources of
publicly available information. Where we determine a holding company like the
Carlyle Group owns a firm, the holding company is listed as the parent. Where a
state agency is listed as the vendor we assign a generic parent name, [STATENAME],
Government of. Where a foreign government agency is listed as the vendor, we
assign the generic parent, [COUNTRYNAME], Government of. Where a U.S. federal
agency or bureau is the vendor, we assign the name of the parent agency.
The Parent Company field offers a convenient way to select all company records
associated with a single parent company. Often in the database, after an
acquisition occurs the contractor names remain the same for years. Many
discontinued contractor names still appear in the database years after an
acquisition, particularly companies associated with large and long-term
contracts.
If you cannot find a vendor name at first, try searching the contractor name
field to see if the company was purchased and is listed under a different parent
company name. In general, if you don't find a firm you are searching for, try
searching under different company spellings, particularly for companies with
initials in their names. The use and order of periods and spaces in company
initials make a difference when searching this field.
Currently, Eagle Eye does not collect the address of the Parent Company. Use the
Parent Company field as a guide for research and not as a legally binding
statement of ownership.
Q: What is the DUNS Number?
A: The DUNS Number is a nine- or thirteen-digit numeric code assigned by the GSA
to every unique contractor administrative or financial reporting center. Every
federal prime contractor is identified by one or more DUNS numbers. A large
parent company will typically display several DUNS Numbers. Many smaller firms
are identified by only one DUNS Number.
Q: What does Place of Performance
Mean?
A: The Place of Performance where procured goods will be produced, manufactured,
mined, grown or where procured services will be performed. This entry refers to
the contractor's final manufacturing assembly point, processing plant,
construction site, place where a service is performed, the location of mines or
where a product is grown. If the items are supplied parts shipped from stock by
a regular dealer, the Place of Performance is the regular dealer's location. If
the items are shipped for the regular dealer by a subcontractor who produces the
items, the Place of Performance is the subcontractor's location. If more than
one Place of Performance is involved in the contract action, only the location
involving the largest dollar share of the contract appears.
The Place of Performance data is divided into two sections- Place of Performance
City and Place of Performance State. The Place of Performance State is a
high-level look at the information, showing the US States, as well as the
individual international countries where work is done. In contrast, the Place of
Performance City is for US Cities only, and has important detail information
such as the SMSA Region, the GSA Region, and the SBA Region.
Q: What is the Fiscal Year Period?
A: The Federal Fiscal Year is from October 1 to September 30. For example,
Fiscal Year 2008 will begin on October 1, 2007 and end on September 30, 2008.
Q: What do the dollar totals
represent?
A: The dollar amounts are Obligations made by the Federal Government. This means
the Federal Government has made a legal commitment to spend x amount with a
company, or on a contract, or in a NAICS code, etc. Negative dollar amounts are
deobligations, which means the government has either reduced the the authorized
value of the contract, or has cancelled the contract outright.
Q: What is a NAICS Code?
A: The six-character North American Industrial Classification System ((NAICS)
Code indicates the nature of a good or service procured on a contract. The codes
correspond to those appearing in the official OMB NAICS Manual. NAICS codes are
used throughout North America to define the kind of work companies perform in
different markets. The government began using NAICS codes in FY 2001 to classify
the predominant kind of work performed on a contract task or delivery order. On
large contracts with diverse requirements involving numerous transactions, more
than one NAICS code may appear on different transactions. These codes have
replaced SIC Codes, which are no longer used by the FPDS-NG system.
NAICS codes also have a Small-Business Size standard attached. The size standard
is the dollar or employment threshold below which a company is considered a
small business for the purpose of determining the firm's qualifications for
special small business solicitation preferences and consideration. The federal
government assigns these thresholds based on an assessment of the structure of
each industry as defined by its NAICS Code.
The size standard represents a three-year dollar or one-year employment total.
If a company's average total revenues or falls below the size standard
established for a NAICS category, or if its employment level is below the
established NAICS employment threshold, then that company qualifies for special
consideration as a small business concern in the awarding of federal contracts.
A company may exceed a size standard in one NAICS category and still qualify as
a small business in another NAICS category with a different size standard.
Q: What does Extent of Competiton
mean?
AA: Extent of Competition is the competiton status of the selected contract
action. There are four different Extent of Competiton codes- Competed, Not
Avaliable for Competition, Follow-on to a competed action, and Not Competed.
Q: How can I tell why a
contract was not Competed?
A: The data includes codes indicating Reason Not Competed. There are multiple
codes for this, including:
UNQ- Unique Source
FOC- Follow-on Contract
UR- Unsolicited Research Proposal
PDR- Patent/Data Rights
UT- Utilities
STD- Standardization
ONE- Only One Source- Other
URG- Urgency
MES- Particular Sources Mobilization, Essential R and D Capability or Expert
Services
IA- International Agreement
OTH- Authorized by Statute and not listed above
Q: Can I tell how many
companies bid on a contract?
A: Yes, the data includes a field called Number of Offers Recieved. This is the
actual number of bids recieved on the contract solicitation. Prior to the FPDS-NG
system, this had been a number range.
Q: Does the
system track awards to Minority-Owned Businesses?
A: Yes, the data includes multiple True/False-flagged fields for Socioeconomic
data. This data tracks whether the incumbent is a Small Business, 8(a)
Participant, HUBZone Company, SDB, JWOD, Woman-Owned, Veteran- or
Service-Disabled-Veteran-Owned, among others.
Q: Are Set-Asides reported?
A: Yes, the data includes the following Type of Set-Asides, and their codes:
None- No set-aside used
SBA- Small Business Set-Aside -- Total
8A- 8(a) Competed
SBP- Small Business Set-Aside -- Partial
HMT- HBCU or MI Set-Aside -- Total
HMP- HBCU or MI Set-Aside -- Partial
VSB- Very Small Business Set-Aside
ESB- Emerging Small Business Set-Aside
HZC- HUBZone Set-Aside
SDVOSBC- Service-Disabled-Veteran-Owned Small Business Set-Aside
BI- Buy Indian
HZS- HUBZone Sole Source
SDVOSBSO- Service-Disabled-Veteran-Owned Small Business Sole Source
8AN- 8(a) Sole Source
RSB- Reserved for Small Business
8AC- 8(a) SDB Set-Aside
HS2- Combination HUBZone and 8(a)
HS3- SDB, 8(a), with HUBZone
Q: What Types of
Contracts are included in the data?
A: The data includes 11 Types of Contracts- Fixed Price Determination, Firm
Fixed Price, Fixed Price Economic Price Adjustment, Fixed Price Incentive, Cost
Plus Award Fee, Cost-No Fee, Cost Sharing, Cost-Plus-Fixed Fee,
Cost-Plus-Incentive Fee, Time and Materials, and Labor Hour.
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