Small companies are often handcuffed by GSA's requirement that a labor category cannot be offered to GSA until such time as it has been sold and you have an invoice to document the sale. And how does a small business acquire the required sales history if it is not allowed to sell a labor category (or categories) to a federal customer through its Schedule contract? This is just one of the dilemmas associated with GSA Schedule contracting.

Offering a labor category as an "open market item" in a GSA Schedule quote is a possible solution to the problem. An open market item is any product or service offered in a GSA Schedule quote that is not an awarded line item on your Schedule contract. Open market items cannot predominate in a GSA Schedule quote but are a legitimate part of a quote if they are incidental to the Schedule items ordered and are properly designated as open market items. We therefore suggest selling new labor categories to federal customers as open market items and then modifying your GSA Schedule contract to add the additional labor categories. The process is cumbersome and time consuming but a practical approach nonetheless. A similar and conceivably easier alternative is to make a commercial sale of the labor categories in question and then modifying your contract thereafter.