Subcontracting compliance
See how you are tracking against your small-business subcontracting goals — early enough to do something about it.
If you are a prime — the company holding the contract directly with the government — you may carry a small-business subcontracting plan. That plan commits you to spending a set percentage of your subcontract dollars with small businesses of specific kinds. You report against it periodically, and if you miss a goal you have to show you genuinely tried.
Most small and mid-sized primes run this in a spreadsheet and find out they are behind when the reporting period is already over. That is the problem this solves.
The attainment worksheet
Set up your plan with your goal percentages by category. The usual ones:
| Category | Who it covers |
|---|---|
| Small business | Any qualifying small business |
| 8(a) | Firms in the SBA's business development program for disadvantaged owners |
| WOSB | Woman-owned small business |
| SDVOSB | Service-disabled veteran-owned small business |
| HUBZone | Small business based in a Historically Underutilized Business Zone |
Then log each subcontract commitment as it happens. The worksheet keeps a live gap number — how far ahead or behind you are on each goal right now. Not at the end of the period, when it is too late to fix.
The categories, the math, and the export layout follow the government's own reporting structure. The numbers you watch are the numbers you file.
The good-faith-effort log
If you miss a goal, what protects you is proof that you tried. That is called good-faith effort: outreach to small businesses, market research, solicitations you sent, responses you got back.
The log records those events with dates and context as they happen, so the trail is built while you work instead of reconstructed under audit pressure. Searching the directory for qualified small-business partners counts as market research — it is itself an effort you can point to.
Filing-ready export
The module produces an attainment export laid out for eSRS — the Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System, the government site where primes file their subcontracting reports. Filing becomes a transfer of numbers you already trust, rather than a quarterly scramble.
FedScope does not file for you, and producing the export is not a compliance determination. eSRS remains the system of record. Check the numbers before you submit them.
What is yours and what is ours
The worksheet is only as complete as what you put in it. FedScope adds up the commitments you log. It does not go find your subcontracts for you. The gap number is arithmetic on your data, and it is labeled that way.
A real example: a prime three quarters into a contract sees its SDVOSB category running behind. The team searches the directory for candidate firms, logs the outreach in the good-faith-effort record, and lands one commitment before the period ends. The worksheet shows the gap closing — and the effort trail exists either way.
Boundaries
- The government's own reporting system is still the official record. FedScope prepares your numbers and evidence. It does not file for you and does not hold your official record.
- A worksheet that looks complete does not by itself make you compliant. That determination belongs to your company and its advisers.
- FedScope does not give legal advice on whether a plan requirement applies to a given contract.
What you need to use it
| To do this | You need |
|---|---|
| Edit the attainment worksheet | Any paid plan |
| Use the good-faith-effort log | A paid plan plus the Prime capability add-on |
| Produce the eSRS filing export | A paid plan plus the Prime capability add-on |
A Pro subscription on its own does not unlock the log or the export.
During beta
Payments are not open yet, so these cannot be purchased. If your account does not already include them, they stay locked for now — we will announce pricing before that changes. Your dashboard shows what your account currently has.