SBA, OMB, GSA and DOD Work Together to Integrate PRO-Net and CCR Database and Simplify Contracting Process for Small Businesses
The U.S. Small Business Administration, the Department of Defense, the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration have taken steps to simplify the federal contracting process by creating an integrated database of small businesses that want to do business with the government.
The integration of PRO-Net and DOD’s Central Contractor Registration (CCR) databases has created one portal for entering and searching small business sources. This integration assists small businesses with marketing their goods and services to the federal government. The integration began on Jan 1, 2004.
The CCR/PRO-Net linkage was part of a comprehensive strategic effort to transfer PRO-Net’s functions to the E-Gov Business Partner Network (BPN) in order to simplify government-wide vendor registration. The network is part of the Integrated Acquisition Environment (IAE), one of the e-government initiatives under the President’s Management Agenda. IAE is carrying out OMB’s mandate for new processes to streamline federal acquisition by creating common integrated business processes for buyers and sellers in the federal marketplace. The network incorporates DOD’s CCR database. Registration in CCR is now a requirement for federal contracts. On Jan 1, 2004, CCR assumed all of PRO-Net’s search capabilities and functions. Small businesses will no longer need to manually register in both PRO-Net and CCR.
“We are continuing to make strides in simplifying the process to help small businesses conduct business with the government,” said SBA Administrator Hector V. Barreto. “By integrating PRO-Net’s functions into CCR, the foundation of the Business Partner Network, we are helping to advance the President’s goal of a single, user-friendly, integrated acquisition environment.”
This merger was another step toward the goals to unify common systems and ensure that data need only be entered once and then reused.
Procuring agencies and contracting officers who relied on PRO-Net as the authoritative source for vendors that are certified in SBA’s 8(a) Business Development program, HUBZone Empowerment Contracting Program and Small Disadvantaged Business program will now access this information through CCR. To conduct market research and confirm eligibility for SBA’s procurement preference programs, users can now go to the CCR Web site at http://www.ccr.gov/ and click on the “Dynamic Small Business Search” button. All of the search options and information that existed in PRO-Net will now be found at the CCR Dynamic Small Business Search site.
Within SBA, PRO-Net has been superseded by the Small Business Source System (SBSS), an internal database of firms certified by SBA under the 8(a) Business Development and HUBZone programs, and as Small Disadvantage Businesses. The SBSS will populate those fields in CCR. The SBSS will automatically review the NAICS codes supplied by a firm and perform calculations against each NAICS code size standard to determine which NAICS codes the firm qualifies as a small business, based on employment and revenue information entered into CCR. Firms will update their records via the CCR Update Web page and should follow the links and directions found there. This automated review of a firm’s size is being done to determine if it is eligible to be included in the SBSS and does not affect, in any way, the self-representation requirement for Federal procurement.
For more information, please visit the CCR Web site at http://www.ccr.gov/