Selling to Government

Successfully selling to government is similar to successfully selling to consumers or other businesses; it's important that you know your customer and how they make their decision to buy. When tendering for contracts with the Australian Government, knowing the rules and regulations for tendering and taking advantage of the right opportunities at the right time is critical.

There are a number of ways for you to maximise your chance of successfully winning a tender.

Selling to the Australian Government: A guide for business

Selling to the Australian Government: A guide for business is aimed at providing you with essential information when competing for Australian Government business, such as:

• how the Government market works
• the rules applying to Government purchasing from the private sector
• finding business tender opportunities
• winning government business.

The guide is designed to help potential suppliers to Government to identify opportunities and become more competitive when tendering.

Understanding liability risk assessment in Australian Government contracts

Understanding how government agencies make their decision to purchase goods and services can improve your chances of a successful outcome. You can do this by gaining a better understanding of the liability risk assessment tasks performed by government procurement officers by viewing the Liability Risk Assessment Guide for FMA Act Agencies.

The guide aims to make the procurement process with small business simpler. It helps government procurement officers to minimise any contractual requirements that unnecessarily place risk and liability on a business, and to assist in setting justifiable levels of professional indemnity and public liability insurance.

This guide allows you to benefit from case studies and understand the model liability clause to make sure you're not being made to carry unreasonable levels of risk and insurance when it comes to negotiating the contract.

You can view or download the guide on the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education website.

Selling to state & territory governments

Government websites in all states and territories list current, past and future tenders and contracts. Most of these websites provide valuable information about the procurement process and how to plan, prepare and submit your tender.

There may be considerable differences between procurement policies in each state or territory, so it's important for you to make sure you have the correct information.

Multi Use Lists (MUL)

Multi Use Lists (MUL) are lists of suppliers that wish to sell to the Australian Government. The lists are used to source suppliers of goods and services and to select tender. If you are a supplier wanting to sell to the Australian Government, you can apply to be included on an MUL relating to your industry.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) suppliers for example, can register on the ICT MUL which provides a list of ICT suppliers that Australian Government agencies can use to source ICT goods and services and to select tender.

Small and medium enterprise (SME) participation ICT procurement policy

This policy is designed to encourage SMEs to participate in the tender process for large ICT contracts with an expected value of over $20 million.

Late payment interest

If you've provided an invoice for the goods or services provided, the government agency is required to pay you within 30 days of receiving the invoice. If not, you may be eligible for late payment interest.

The Procurement 30 Day Payment Policy for Small Business requires government agencies to pay simple interest on any amount still owed after 30 days of the correctly submitted invoice being received. This applies only to procurement contracts with small business worth up to A$1 million (GST inclusive).

The policy doesn't apply to procurements where an agreement was in place prior to 1 December 2008.

Find out more about the policy at the Department of Finance and Deregulation website.