The Commercial Sales Practices Document (CSP-1)

This is a document that poses a lot of confusion (and rightfully so) for many GSA vendors. We are going to give you step by step instructions on how to successfully fill out the document whether you are a new vendor, or a current vendor completing it for a modification.

 The top portion is some quick basic information- total sales for the past completed fiscal year, along with the beginning and end dates for your company’s fiscal year. If you are a current GSA vendor, you will input the number of sales you reported to GSA for the last completed fiscal year for each SIN you have awarded in your GSA schedule. If you are submitting for a new GSA contract, you will put the SINs you are pursuing, and the amount you hope to sell through each SIN.

Question number 3 is ensuring that you are aware you need to give the government the best discounts possible, and you will mark “yes” for that.

The chart you see next is where you will disclose your MFC (Most Favored Customer) discounts. An MFC is a specific customer who gets a special discount off your standard commercial prices.

Say you always sell your ice cream cones to Walmart for 10% off your normal commercial prices. To The Customer cell would be Walmart, and the discount is 10%. If you give Walmart an additional quantity/volume discount- such as another 2% for overs over 100 cones, you would input that in the quantity/volume cell. The FOB term details who pays for shipping- the customer, or the seller. If the customer pays it, the FOB term is origin. If the seller bakes it into the price, the term would be destination. The last cell will detail any other special concessions you give this special customer.

This MFC discount is supposed to describe the absolute best deal that you give to anyone, including dealers and distributors- the commercial price floor.

GSA will require a discount off MFC rates, and that discount relationship will need to be maintained for the life of the contract. If there are ever any changes to your commercial sales practices, like a new MFC, or a new discount, this document will need updated and brought to GSA’s attention. If you do have an MFC, you will need to also input that information in the Price Proposal template- the big excel spreadsheet that details your GSA pricing and how you arrived at those rates.

If you are a vendor that does not have a special customer and sells to everyone at MSRP, this chart will look a little different. For most companies, your standard commercial rates are what you charge everyone. If that is the case, you will input “All Commercial Customers” for the customer name, 0% for the discount, N/A for the next cell, Destination for FOB and None for concessions.

Just to reiterate- the CSP document does NOT detail your GSA discounts, it only dives into your commercial AKA non-GSA sales practices.

As always if you have any questions related to this post,  or need any GSA consulting help, please feel free to email us at info@elevategsa.com!