The email hit at 4:12 on a Thursday. Subject line was a contract number and nothing else. The attachment was a PDF, and the PDF was my first government contract.

I sat there waiting to feel something. Eighteen thousand and change, floor care at a federal building, four months of work.

Twelve bids in, and there was no phone call and no handshake. Just a form with my company name typed into it.

Then the part nobody had written an article about started. I finished the first month of work in October and the money showed up in December, and every single reason for that gap was something I'd done wrong without knowing it.

Nobody tells you when you lose, either

Start with the eleven I didn't win, because that surprised me more.

For buys that don't exceed the simplified acquisition threshold, the contracting officer doesn't have to tell unsuccessful suppliers anything unless somebody asks. If you do ask about an award that was decided on factors beyond price alone, you're owed a brief explanation of why you weren't selected (FAR 13.106-3). Asking is on you.

Bigger negotiated procurements work differently and the clock is short. You request a postaward debriefing in writing within 3 days after you get the award notice, and it should happen within 5 days of that request where practicable (FAR 15.506).

I let three of those windows close because I assumed somebody would eventually explain. Nobody was going to.

Your first government contract might not build any past performance

This is the one that actually stung, and I only found it because I went looking for my own record.

Agencies write formal performance evaluations into CPARS for each contract and each order that exceeds the simplified acquisition threshold, currently $350,000. Construction gets evaluated at $900,000 or more, architect-engineer work at $45,000 or more (FAR 42.1502).

My job was eighteen grand. Nothing about it was going into any government-wide system.

I did four months of clean work and generated no official past performance at all, which is the exact thing I'd been losing bids for lack of.

When I wrote about how to get a first government contract I said subcontracting is one way to build a record. Winning small doesn't do the same job, and I hadn't put those two facts next to each other until I went looking for my name and it wasn't there.

So I asked the COR for a letter at closeout. Dates, dollar value, scope, and a sentence saying we performed.

It isn't CPARS. But I can hand it to somebody who asks what I've done.

Getting paid on a first government contract

Here's where I lost most of the money, in the sense of not having it for a while.

The due date for an invoice payment is the later of two things: the 30th day after the designated billing office receives a proper invoice, or the 30th day after the government accepts the work (FAR 32.904). Both halves have teeth. Acceptance is a step somebody has to actually perform, and the 30 days doesn't start on the day you finish.

That word "proper" is a defined list, not an opinion. A proper invoice has to carry your name and address, the invoice date and number, the contract number including the order and line item number, a description with quantity and unit price, payment terms, where payment goes, and the name and phone number of the person to contact if the invoice is defective, plus your EFT banking information and taxpayer ID where agency procedures require them (FAR 32.905).

Mine was missing the line item number. The billing office sent it back, which they're required to do within 7 days after receipt with the reason attached, and I lost most of a month resubmitting a document I thought I'd already submitted.

Two things I wish I'd known before I sent that first invoice.

If they pay late on a proper invoice with no dispute over the work, the interest penalty is supposed to be paid automatically, without you asking for it (FAR 32.907).

And both DoD and the civilian agencies are directed to try to pay small business contractors faster than the 30 days — a goal of 15 days after a proper invoice and the rest of the required paperwork (FAR 32.009-1). That's a goal, and the same rule says it creates no new rights under the Prompt Payment Act. Don't plan your payroll on it.

One more, and it's the practical one. If a payment goes sideways, a small business can go to the agency's small business specialist or the OSDBU for help with payment problems and late payment interest (FAR 32.909).

I didn't know that office would touch invoices. It will.

You have to keep the SAM registration alive after you win

Winning a first federal contract doesn't close out the SAM.gov chore. You have to maintain your registration during performance and through final payment, and review and update your information every year from the date you registered (FAR 52.204-13).

Through final payment. So if you let it lapse in month three of a four-month job, you've got a live contract and a dead record, and the office that owes you money is looking at the dead record.

The same clause has a detail worth knowing if you win something before your registration is finished. In that case you have to be registered within 30 days after award or before three days prior to your first invoice, whichever comes first. Bad sentence to find out about late.

What I do differently now

None of this is complicated once you've been through a first government contract. It's just nowhere in the advice.

I read the payment clauses before I bid now, not after I win. Takes ten minutes and tells me when the money realistically lands.

At kickoff I get two names: who accepts the work, and where the invoice physically goes. Those are usually not the contracting officer, and I spent weeks emailing the wrong person about the wrong thing.

And I plan cash on the work being paid something like six to eight weeks after it's done, not thirty days. That's my own buffer, not a rule. Four guys and a truck means payroll doesn't wait for anybody's billing office to annotate anything.

The floor care on that first federal contract took me four months. The paperwork around it took longer and I'm still not sure I'd call it finished.

See what's already open against your NAICS codes

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Marcus isn't one specific guy. He's the contractor I keep meeting. The rules, thresholds, and citations here are real and sourced below.

Sources