Fulfilling the Promise of e-Gov Initiatives—Part II: the integration of federal acquisition processes has already improved services—and the near future looks even brighter

Public Manager, The, Winter, 2007 by Lisa Cliff, Judy Steele

Central Contractor Registration

DoD developed the CCR database (www.ccr.gov) to offer contractors a single point to enter all common business information, including name, address, products and services, electronic funds transfer data, and D&B Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) numbers. FAR Part 4.11 now requires contractors to register business information in CCR before they can be awarded a contract or receive payment and so contracting officers can ensure they have done so. Contractors are responsible for the accuracy of the data in CCR and are required to update this information at least annually.

The Small Business Administration's (SBA's) PRO-Net was merged into CCR in 2004 to create an integrated database of small businesses that want to do business with the government and to simplify the government-wide vendor registration process. CCR assumed PRO-Net's search capabilities and functions, PRO-Net closed down, and small businesses no longer need to manually register in both systems. GSA, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and SBA want to ensure the integrity of the data in CCR as it relates to eligibility for the federal government's small business program. To do so, SBA now provides CCR its data regarding the firms it has certified as HUBZone, 8(a), and Small Disadvantaged Business and calculates the Small Business and Emerging Small Business status of the firm for each North American Industry Classification System code registered on the basis of the employee and revenue data provided to CCR by the registrant.

CCR dramatically reduces the contractor workload because the data entered spread throughout IAE systems government-wide, so the contractor does not have to repeatedly submit to multiple agencies. Contracting officials note that it is one of the easiest of the IAE systems to use because the others are more transactional. To register, the contractor first obtains a nine-digit DUNS number, assigned by D&B to federal business partners at no cost, to identify unique business enterprises. (D&B offers a central Web site and help desk just for federal registrants at fedgov.dnb.com/webform.) An online CCR handbook is available for contractors and government officials at www.ccr.gov to familiarize them with the CCR process. More than 440,000 contractors are registered, most of them small businesses.

Use of the D&B DUNS number facilitates system interoperability as the other IAE systems interact and pull data from CCR. Creation of a marketing partner identification number (MPIN) is now mandatory for all CCR registrants. The MPIN is a personal code the user creates and registers in CCR for access to other government applications, such as the Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA), Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS), and FedTeDS. The MPIN acts as the password in these other systems and should be guarded.

Effective June 2006, the FAR was changed to include Internal Revenue Service (IRS) validation of the CCR registrant's taxpayer identification number (TIN) for each new and updated CCR registration to improve the quality of data. Once the contractor enters the TIN and taxpayer name (if different from the registrant), the IRS ensures that it agrees with its database.