State Registrations

Why are they important?

When positioning your business for government opportunities the best way to be seen by those involved is registering your business with state departments and agencies. Every state has an online registration and bid system these days as technology continues to advance. Governments agencies on a state level publish all upcoming bids and projects they’re working on via these online registration systems. You can register for most of these without even having your business in the state you’re registering with. By registering, your business information will be viewed by contracting officers as a viable option, plus you can view hundreds of contracts that will not be found on federal bid sites.

Where do you find your local or other municipal registration portals?

These registration portals are usually easy to find, and their instructions are clear. Let’s look together and see what options are available. Let’s say we live in the sunny state of Florida, where Select GCR is headquartered. Let’s open a browser and search for the portal and information that we need. Here are a few examples of how you can search: You can use the (State Name) Supplier Registration, (State Name) Vendor Registration, or (State Name) emarketplace.

View the examples below to see what the state of Florida offers because you will see similar options within your state. By reading this information and clicking on the state links you will start to understand the available programs and what they can provide your business.

https://vendor.myfloridamarketplace.com/ – MyFloridaMarketPlace (MFMP) is the State of Florida’s eProcurement system and connects vendors with state government organizations that purchase goods and services. The MFMP Vendor Information Portal provides a self-service portal where vendors can register, receive electronic purchase orders information, and receive information on upcoming bids.

MFMP is the source for centralized procurement activities, streamlining interactions between vendors and state government entities. In MFMP, agency customers have access to greater spend visibility, online catalogs, automated approval flows, pre-registered vendors, and much more.

MFMP provides vendors with a self-registration system, the MFMP Vendor Information Portal (VIP), in which vendors must register to do business with the State of Florida.

The Vendor Information Portal (VIP) of the MyFloridaMarketPlace website provides new vendor registration directly on the home page. The system will ask if you seek state business enterprise certification. You may select any of the business enterprise options: woman-, veteran-, or minority-owned.

https://www.dms.myflorida.com/business_operations/state_purchasing/myfloridamarketplace – The Department of Management Services (DMS) is the business arm of the Florida government. The Department’s primary mission is to support sister agencies as well as current and former state employees with workforce and business-related functions so that agencies can focus on their core missions as defined in law. Today, DMS is divided into two major services areas: Business Operations and Workforce Operations.

Business Operations consists of State Purchasing, Real Estate Development and Management, Telecommunications, as well as Fleet and Federal Surplus Property.

https://floridabuy.org/ – The Florida Buy State Cooperative Purchasing program offers a FREE state-wide solution for government procurement by providing competitively solicited contracts though the Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies.

As your search expands you will find other options such as a Vendor Bid System or direct links to government departments and agencies specific to the state you’re searching.

Vendor Bid System (VBS) – The official online repository for all state advertisements for competitive procurements. This includes advertisements from state agencies, universities, state colleges, water management districts, and other local municipalities.

VBS MANUAL – https://dms-media.ccplatform.net/content/download/149119/994627/VBS_Manual.pdf

Florida DOT (Department of Transportation) – https://www.fdot.gov/procurement/dotbids.shtm

Florida Health – https://www.floridahealth.gov/doing-business-with-the-department/index.html

Click on the “Register” button.

This will take you to the area where you fill in your information. Here is an example of the first page of the Florida State Registration portal.

You will go through all the steps and fill in the needed information to complete your registration!

Here are some common requirements needed for registering.

If you would like to be sure that you have the correct information before you start to look for and perform these registrations, here are some of the most common requirements:

• Signed W9
• TAX ID Number
• Company Address/Contact Information
• Copies of Insurance Certificates (General Liability etc.)
• Copies of Diversity Certificates (e.g., MBE, WOSB, VOSB)
• Commodity/Supplier NIGP codes (the portal usually has a search feature to find which ones apply to your business, if not, an official list is held here https://ocp.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ocp/page_content/attachments/nigplist.pdf

With the above information, you should be able to register with most of the municipal governments.