From Soups and Bouillons to Coffee, Tea, and Cocoa to Weapons, the United States Federal Government is the world’s largest purchaser of goods and services. If your company desires to offer products and services to the government, the first step is to get registered with SAM (System for Award Management). https://beta.sam.gov/

During your SAM update or registration, there is an important marketing section named “Assertions.” In this section, you are educating the government on your broad offerings by listing NAICS codes. NAICS is an abbreviation for North American Industry Classification System. You may list multiple NAICS but one of them must be identified as your “Primary NAICS Code.” Please note that  your primary NAICS Code is also reported on your Federal Tax returns as your “Business activity code number.” (see image below)

NAICS codes broadly define your offerings but do not provide enough granular information for the government to gain a full understanding of your business without reviewing your capability statement or website. This is where PSC Codes come into play. PSC stands for Product Service Code. For example, geoConvergence’s primary NAICS Code is 541511 (Custom Computer Programming Services). This would be similar to telling a crime investigator that the suspect was 6’ tall. PSC codes allow for more detailed information about the suspect such as having brown hair, hazel eyes, fair skin and a tattoo of a ninja on the right arm.

Using geoConvergence as an example, we provide PSC codes to support 541511 such as DA01 – IT AND TELECOM – BUSINESS APPLICATION/APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT SERVICES (LABOR). DA01 is further defined as “Support services for activities involved with application development and support to include analysis, design, development, coding, testing, and release packaging, as well as the support of off-the-shelf Business Applications. User Research, Human Center Design, Development/Security/Operations (DevSecOps), Customer Experience (UX). Application development for new software projects and support for existing applications.” As you can see, this PSC code gives more granular information to support our NAICS Code 541511 (Custom Computer Programming Services).

As we close out 2020, now is a perfect time to update your SAM profile with as many PSC codes that describe your offerings. Here are a few additional resources regarding PSC codes.

DoD memo on how it uses PSC Codes to support strategic sourcing: https://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/policy/policyvault/USA004219-12-DPAP.pdf

PSC Manual: https://www.acquisition.gov/Psc-manual

* PSC Selection Tool: https://psctool.us/

* The PSC Selection Tool allows users to search for the right PSC by keyword search, code search, or using the Federal Government’s category management (CM) spend categories. These categories, as established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the cross-agency Category Management Leadership Council (CMLC), group together like products or services to enable the government to buy smarter and more like a single enterprise, delivering more savings, value, and efficiency for Federal Agencies. The tool also allows searches by DoD’s legacy sixteen portfolio groups that were established under the Better Buying Power initiative.