The General Services Administration is moving the implementation date of the System for Award Management, aimed at consolidating a number of federal procurement engines, from Tuesday until the end of July.
According to a notice on the Central Contractor Registration, the additional 60 days will allow federal agencies to continue preparing staff, give agencies and commercial system providers more time to test data transfer connections and will ensure SAM contains the critical, documented capabilities users need from the system.
This first phase of SAM will include the capabilities of Central Contractor Registration/Federal Agency Registration, Online Representations and Certifications Application and the Excluded Parties List System. In preparation for the launch, GSA conducted extensive testing internally and in coordination with federal agencies using the data from these systems in their own contracting, grants, finance and other departments.
“SAM will reduce the burden on those seeking to do business with the government,” the notice said. “Vendors will be able to log into one system to manage their entity information in one record, with one expiration date, through one streamlined business process. Federal agencies will be able to look in one place for entity pre-award information. Everyone will have fewer passwords to remember and see the benefits of data reuse as information is entered into SAM once and reused throughout the system.”
