The General Services Administration (GSA) rescheduled its planned outreach to industry in looking for an automated solution that can help agencies conduct audits of Federal grant recipients. The new date for the virtual pre-demonstration conference is March 4, and industry demonstration days will be held on April 3 and April 5.
The solicitation notes that as part of the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) goal of improving accountability for Federal grants, GSA is looking to offer a shared services solution that will help agencies manage the more than 30,000 grant recipients who meet the threshold for an audit. The solution may replace the Federal Audit Clearinghouse, but the notice leaves open the possibility of interfacing with or enhancing the current system.
“A shared solution to manage the grant recipient Single Audit process, and capability to integrate and analyze audit information with award performance, financial, and compliance information, would improve risk analysis to inform decision-making across the grant award and monitoring process,” the notice states.
In looking for a solution, GSA notes that it would like to see a solution that stores audit results and recommendations, allows shared access to non-government entities, shares information across grant-making agencies, and supports analysis of the grant program’s level of risk.
The solicitation also suggests that vendors align with the Cloud First and Cloud Smart strategies, offer a payment model that decreases with scale, meets FedRAMP requirements, and accommodates interoperability with other software through APIs and other data-transfer methods.
While the original dates for industry comment had been scheduled for January, the government shutdown threw a wrench in those plans. The update on timing, provided Tuesday, gives interested vendors until March 13 to register to present to GSA, although previously registered participants “have automatically been registered again,” the agency said.
The Office of Government-wide Policy is leading the effort within GSA, on behalf of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Executive Steering Committee of CAP Goal 8.