SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- Automated Invoice Validation Application
- Notice Date
- 3/29/2013
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 519190
— All Other Information Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Grants, Acquisitions, Procurement and Policy Division (INL/RM/GAPP), SA-4 Navy Hill, South Building, 2430 E Street, N.W., Washington, District of Columbia, 20037, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20037
- Solicitation Number
- SINLEC13Q2001
- Archive Date
- 5/21/2013
- Point of Contact
- Brian J. Schoellkopf,
- E-Mail Address
-
schoellkopfbj@state.gov
(schoellkopfbj@state.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Notice Type: Sources Sought Synopsis: This is a Request for Information (RFI) only. Do not submit a proposal or quote. The Department of State (DOS) invites you to submit responses, after reviewing the prospective requirements listed below. Please provide responses if you have an existing commercial off-the-shelf product (COTS) that will support all of the prospective requirements. Responses should follow the format listed below. DOS is only interested in ELECTRONIC feedback, at this time. This RFI is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to procure any items/services, or for the Government to pay for the information received. Responses to this Sources Sought are due by May 6, 2013. Please submit all responses to this RFI to: INL/RM/GAPP Contracting Officer: Brian Schoellkopf: SchoellkopfBJ@state.gov. 1. Please provide the following Information: Company: Address: Point of Contract: Phone Number: Email Address: 2. Please identify your company's small business size standard based on the primary North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code. For more information, refer to http://www.sba.gov/content/table-small-business-size-standards Large Business Concern Small Business (SB) Concern 8A Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) Women-Owned Small Business Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) Veteran-Owned Small Business Service-Disable Veteran-Owned Small Business THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS ARE STRICTLY HYPOTHETICAL. PLEASE RESPOND TO THESE QUESTIONS UNDER THE HYPOTHETICAL ASSUMPTION THAT DOS ISSUES A SOLICITATION BASED ON THE INCLUDED PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT (PWS). SOME QUESTIONS REQUIRE YOU TO ASSUME THAT YOUR ORGANIZATION HAS RESPONDED TO THIS HYPOTHETICAL SOLICITATION AND THAT DOS HAS SELECTED YOUR ORGANIZATION FOR A CONTRACT AWARD. 3. If you identify your company as a Small Business or any of the SB subcategories as stipulated in Question #2, then would your company be able to perform as a prime contractor for the attached PWS? 4. Under the current SB recertification regulations, do you anticipate your company remaining a small business under? If you are a SB answer questions 4A and B. All others skip to Question #5. A. If your company is awarded the contract, will you able to perform at least 50% (percent) of the work? B. If you are a small business, can you perform without payment for 90 days? 5. Is your company currently providing similar services to another government agency (you many also include contract number(s) for government) or other non-government customer? If so, please identify the agency or non-government customer. If you are willing to share your customer's identity, please address whether your company offers the same or similar services commercially. 6. Has your Company performed this type of effort or similar type effort (to include size and complexity) in the past, if so provide Contract Number(s), Point of Contact(s) (POCs), e-mail address, phone number, and a brief description of your direct support of the effort? 7. What are the core competencies of your employees that would support the requirements? Also provide the total number of individuals currently employed by your company capable of supporting the requirements. 9. Do all your employees, that would support this Requirement, have at least a SECRET Clearance? 10. Does your firm possess an approved Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) accounting system? 11. Interested companies may also provide a Statement (no more than 20 pages in length) describing how its products and technical expertise could produce and deliver such capabilities as described in the information below and attached PWS. Also, identify your company's past and current customers to which you provided similar products/services, including customer/company name(s), POCs, phone number, and address/e-mail where they can be contacted. Description of Effort: The current process for reviewing invoices lacks uniformity, requires significant man hours, and does not provide the ability to track invoice transactions for comparison of charges. Additionally, the current process is outdated and does not effectively or efficiently mitigate the risk of improper payments. A need exists to provide INL with the ability to implement efficient management controls over extremely complex, high dollar contracts. INL desires to find a COTS product that could provide the needed functionality, serve as the central repository of all invoice transaction details and perform pre-payment validation procedures. The application should be able to apply a standard set of business rules to identify transactions that do not conform to the contract, that are duplicative of prior charges, not in conformity with regulations or not properly supported. The results of these tests should be easily displayed in a series of customized and standardized reports that will allow invoice reviewers to monitor transactions more efficiently. Lastly, the application should provide needed insight in the financial performance of each program by monitoring the level of spending in relation to the level of funding. Project Objectives 1. Automate invoice pre-payment validation processes initially for contract task orders to the maximum extent possible. 1.1. Scheduled data retrieval to efficiently import data from contractor provided deliverables, including but not limited to Cost Proposals, Invoices, and potentially supporting documentation. 1.2. Employ a menu driven interface that links users to invoice transactions allowing users to manually enter data in predefined fields to supplement data directly imported. 1.3. Utilize defined sampling strategies when there are large amounts of transactions and a high amount of manual effort involved in analysis. 1.4. Produce canned reports to include the following: 1) Exceptions Report that identifies transactions that do not conform to defined business rules and flags them for further analysis, 2) Duplicate payment report, 3) Burn Rate Report that monitors the pace of spending, 4) Cost Proposal Summary Report, 5) Invoice Summary Report that shows all paid invoices, 6) Manning Rosters generated from billed labor charges for use in the field for employee verification purposes, 7) Employee Report that shows all related expenses attributable to an individual employee, 8) Trend Exceptions (e.g. position variances in employee history, statistical quality management reports).9) Vendor Rate Comparison that will provide insight for program evaluation and planning, 10) Productivity Statistics on invoice reviewers, 2. Deliver ad-hoc reports and provide data-mining functionality in support of program analysis and audit/investigation/Congressional oversight response. 3. Provide contractors with support to submit data from their electronic systems based on business rules defined in each applicable contract. 4. Allow DOS users the ability to track refunds from the vendors. 5. Track charges that are formally rejected on invoices to monitor resubmission on future invoices. 6. "Do Not Pay" list to prevent improper payments to subcontractors. 7. Within the following Contract Line Item Numbers (CLINs), the application should be able to track transactions to these levels of detail: 7.1. Labor: Employee ID, Employee Name, Pay Period, Labor Rate, Nationality 7.2. Travel: Employee ID, Employee Name, Airline, Flight Class, Travel Dates, Price, Route/Location 7.3. Other Reimbursable Costs: Description, Date of Delivery, Transaction Amount, Vendor, Unit Quantity and Price, Serial Number, VIN Business Requirements The application must provide user-friendly tools to efficiently assist in the invoice validation process while serving the overall strategic and operational objectives of INL/RM/CAS to perform contract oversight and financial monitoring. 1. User Requirements 1.1. User interface - menu driven, data entry screens, straightforward design. 1.2. Accessibility - web based for users around the world. 1.3. Advanced data mining capabilities 1.4. Module based - apply different rules, utilize different data sets depending on the type of charge (CLIN) or purpose of data (cost proposal vs. invoice data). 1.4.1. Business rules will be defined by INL/RM/CAS 1.4.2. Check for charges on a list of prohibited vendors/individuals. 1.5. Invoice Status Action - ability to mark invoices as rejected or approved and to track charges which were identified as improper. 2. System Requirements 2.1. Security in compliance with Department of State requirements: USB (sneakernet) to avoid cross contaminating or obtaining special permissions for each use of transferring files from development to OpenNet and vice versa 2.2. Hosting (Development Network): IT infrastructure provider and maintenance 2.2.1. SQL Server Standard Edition plus an Ad-hoc reporting tool (Power view add-in) 2.3. Storage Area Network (SAN) 2.4. Hardware 2.4.1. Tunnels: Encryptor(s) for developers, testers and observers 2.4.2. Switches 2.4.2.1. Dedicated Cisco Catalyst switch 2.4.2.2. KVM switch to toggle between servers from one workstation 2.4.3. Workstation(s) for developers/testers/observers with SSMS, Visual Studio, and Powershell 2.4.4. Server: on HP DL360 G5 or greater (x64 OS) 2.4.5. IIS on HP DL360 G5 or greater (x64 OS and app) 2.5. Additional software for developer: regression testing, source control, cbtnuggets, etc 2.6. Disks: ssd or hdd, rpm, capacity and interconnect speed (i.e. iSCSI, Pci-e, etc) 2.7. SharePoint site- Storage location for user guides, data, etc.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/State/INL/INL-RM-MS/SINLEC13Q2001/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: TBD, Washington, District of Columbia, 20037, United States
- Zip Code: 20037
- Zip Code: 20037
- Record
- SN03024703-W 20130331/130329234930-50cfcec423adf57894b74be4eb41596f (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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