If you participate in a Department of the Treasury contract, you may have to cooperate and comply with various programs to assist with achieving those goals. Certain types of contracts limit the amount of profit you can earn and the amounts and types of costs you may recover. The designation is important when you begin to deal with the Department of the Treasury and other federal and state governments. Small business is defined using size guidelines for the different categories of business enterprises, which include agricultural production, communications, manufacturing, retail, service, transportation and warehousing, and wholesale. Subcategories are included under each of these headings.
Size is determined by the amount of average annual receipts or by the number of employees.
Service businesses generally have a size standard that would be determined by averaging your gross annual receipts for the last three years. For most manufacturing SIC codes, the number of employees will be used as a size standard. For more information, please contact the Small Business Administration or examine a listing of SIC codes .