State and local procurement offices use the registration data to compile a database of approved vendors. Such systems let agencies' source selection team members get quick access to bids and make contract award decisions at their PCs. Many states are somewhere between partial online buying and full-fledged electronic commerce. But the state does not accept bids online. At the bureau, the extent of Web access that vendors enjoy depends on how much they pay to participate, McCain said.
Registered vendors can download RFPs and other data from the Web site.
These companies, too, can search the site and download procurement information and RFPs, but they do not receive automatic notification of upcoming buys. Each RFP has a bid number that the vendors can type into a search engine on the Web site. Vendors can also search by commodity codes, McCain said. After a company responds to an RFP, which the bureau will accept on paper or as a fax, procurement clerks key in the bid and store the data in the bureau's VendorNet database, McCain said. Once a contract is awarded, the agency posts the data on the site, where companies and the public can read about the contract's price and terms.