Small Business: SBA Exchange allows for electronic purchases, payments

Sam Jones is the Region VII SBA Administrator.

SBA Exchange is a new electronic tool that allows federal agencies to award simplified acquisitions up to $100,000 and to make purchases and payments electronically with the government-wide commercial purchase card.

Federal agencies will be able to use SBA Exchange to award purchases over $25,000 that have been posted in Federal Business Opportunities, provided the notice states that the award will be made electronically. Additionally, it will help small businesses compete for purchases that now are obtained through other contracting methods. Small business can register now, but agencies won't begin awarding transactions through the system until March 30.

Small businesses that want to participate will need to obtain an Internet-based Supplier Web site at www.SBAExchange. gov. More details on the program also are available at this Web site.

The annual cost to participate in the SBA Exchange Program is $1,500. Additionally, a transaction fee of 2 percent is added to all orders. The first 2,500 companies to sign up will receive a $450 discount.

Through the supplier Web site a small business will receive:

a fully hosted, supplier-branded, e-commerce Web site;

exposure to federal buying authorities, large federal prime contractors and other large buying officials;

a centralized order-management system for receiving and processing Internet-based orders from federal, state, local and commercial buying authorities;

a management system for tracking new business, creating and submitting quotes; and

assistance in managing the new site.

NAICS modifications

Effective Oct. 1, SBA adopted modifications to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) into its table of small-business size standards. The new NAICS codes are referred to as NAICS 2002.

NAICS 2002 contains a sufficient number of changes so that SBA is issuing a new table of size standards reflecting the modifications. NAICS 2002 is the same as NAICS 1997 for 16 of the 20 sectors. Construction and wholesale trade are substantially changed with new industries and new six-digit NAICS codes. There also are revisions that modify a number of retail classifications as well as the organization of the information sector.

Please check to see if your business NAICS code and size standard has changed, and if it has changed, please update PRO-Net and other marketing tools to reflect the new NAICS codes.

The Web site www.census.gov/epcd /naics02/ includes information such as descriptions of any or all of the NAICS industries, crosswalk tables and SIC codes, keyword search for NAICS codes, and general information about NAICS 2002.

PRO-Net and CCR integration

The White House has made a demand to reduce the burden on small businesses that want to do business with the federal government and large contractors awarded federal government contracts. We are streamlining the process so that firms can automatically register in both PRO-Net, the Procurement Marketing and Access Network, and CCR, Central Contractor Registration, at the same time.

The integration is taking longer than expected. There are two things you need to focus on now.

PRO-Net will no longer allow new registrations nor allow existing registered businesses to edit their profiles. These two functions will have to be done through the CCR Web site (www.CCR.gov). If you have not already registered in the CCR, please do so immediately.

The Duns number is a must for CCR and businesses with multiply offices must have a Duns number for each office.

Look at the NAICS 2002 and make sure your NAICS codes are correct in the PRO-Net small business profile. The NAICS 2002 codes are now available in the PRO Net.

As was previously the case, the CCR will be the primary vendor database for collecting information for electronic fund transfer. The PRO-Net registration will be at the bottom of the CCR registration page. The CCR will transfer information to the PRO-Net database and the PRO-Net database will remain the primary marketing tool for small businesses where contracting officers will search profiles for businesses capable of performing on projects they have a need for.