By Holly Powell, Federal Procurement Analyst, NCMBC
In order to do business with the federal government, it is essential to learn the terminology. The first set of terms you will encounter in the federal marketplace involves those that are used to identify the products and/or services your firm wants to sell. It is important for you to research and identify the appropriate Product Services Code (PSC), Federal Supply Code (FSC), Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) and North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes that are of interest to you.
Fortunately, there are resources available to help with this task.
First, let’s look at the Federal Supply Classification system which is used to classify goods and services bought by the federal government. This system starts by designating Federal Supply Groups which lead to 4-digit numbering systems for the PSCs and FSCs.
If your firm provides services, one or more PSCs will apply to you. (Note that the term “Product Service Code” actually seems like something of a misnomer since it does not involve products in the sense of deliverable items. Instead, the PSC is a code that classifies services.) If your firm provides products, one or more FSCs will apply to you. Note that you may determine that multiple PSCs and/or FSCs fit your firm.
You may identify the appropriate PSCs/FSCs by using this website: http://www.outreachsystems.com/resources/tables/pscs/
The PSCs all start with a letter from A-Z. (These letters are considered to be the Federal Supply Group.) Once you go to the website with the table of PSCs, select the appropriate one on the left of your screen, click on it, and the table of complete 4-digit PSC numbers starting with that letter will open on the right.
The FSCs start with 2-digit numbers. (Again, this is the Federal Supply Group). Scan the numbers on the left side of the website, click on the ones that best fit your firm, and note the complete 4-digit numbers that describe your products.
You may also find this website helpful because you can perform searches for FSCs using keywords: http://www.drms.dla.mil/htbin/fscsearch.pl
Now, let’s move on to the SIC and NAICS codes. Actually, the Standard Industrial Classification system was superceded by the North American Industry Classification System which was created in 1997. However, in order to register at the Central Contractor Registration (which you must do to be a government prime contractor), you must still list at least one SIC code for your firm.
NAICS (and its precursor, SIC) is used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the US business economy. Note that these systems were not created for purposes of classifying federal government acquisitions. However, you must decide which ones best fit the products and/or services you want to sell to the government, and the government must assign the best one to each purchase it makes.
This is a handy website for looking up the NAICS that apply to your firm: http://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/
Simply enter keywords into the search box at the upper left and note all of the 6-digit NAICS codes that describe your products/services. If you sell a product, you should select the NAICS codes for the manufacturer (Sectors 31-33), wholesaler (Sector 42) and retailer (Sectors 44-45) of the product. This is because when the government buys a product, the Contracting Officer (KO) is supposed to assign the manufacturing NAICS that applies. However, the KO sometimes mistakenly selects the wholesaler or retailer NAICS.
In order to identify at least one SIC (which is a 4-digit number), you may use this website which allows keyword searches if you click on the [SIC Search] link: http://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/sic_manual.html
So, now you know what PSC/FSC, SIC and NAICS codes are and how to find them. You will need all of these codes when you register to do business with the government at www.ccr.gov. Furthermore, you will see that when the Government advertises its acquisitions, each one will have a PSC or FSC and a NAICS code associated with it.
Use of these codes will help you find the opportunities that fit your firm. In fact, you should keep that in mind when you are selecting your codes—it is better to select all of the ones that may be used to classify an opportunity you might be interested in rather than selecting too few.
Once you select the PSC/FSC/SIC/NAICS for your firm, don’t forget to write them down and save them. In fact, start a file; if you really want to go after the federal market, you are going to collect a whole bunch of numbers, user ids and passwords!
Note that it is very important to enter your NAICS codes into your profile at www.MatchForce.org so that you can be matched to appropriate contract opportunities. Furthermore, you can use both NAICS and/or the Federal Supply Group codes to search for opportunities at MatchForce and www.fedbizopps.gov.
Feel free to contact Holly Powell at powellh@ncmbc.us,if you have any questions about this article.
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