Reference

Government procurement glossary

Every term you will encounter reading a municipal solicitation — defined in plain English for Los Angeles small businesses.

RFP — Request for Proposal: A formal document issued by a government agency inviting vendors to submit a detailed proposal to provide a specific good or service. RFPs are the most common procurement vehicle for professional services, IT systems, and complex projects. Unlike IFBs, RFPs are evaluated on both price and technical merit — meaning the lowest bid does not automatically win.
RFI — Request for Information: A pre-solicitation document agencies use to gather market intelligence before writing the actual RFP. RFIs are non-binding — responding doesn't mean you'll be eligible to bid later, but it lets you influence how the RFP is written. For small businesses, RFIs are the single most valuable stage because you can talk to procurement officers while requirements are still being shaped.
RFQ — Request for Quotation: A solicitation used when the agency already knows exactly what it wants and is selecting primarily on price. RFQs are common for commodity purchases, supplies, or simple services with well-defined specifications. They typically have faster turnaround times than RFPs.
IFB — Invitation for Bid: Used primarily for construction and commodity contracts. The agency publishes detailed specifications and the contract goes to the lowest responsible and responsive bidder. Unlike RFPs, there is no scoring of technical approach — price is determinative.
NAICS Code: North American Industry Classification System — a 6-digit code that classifies businesses by their primary industry. Government agencies use NAICS codes to categorize procurement opportunities. Small businesses need to know their NAICS codes to set up bid alerts and qualify for set-aside contracts. A company can have multiple NAICS codes.
Set-Aside: A procurement reserved entirely for a specific category of vendor — for example, small businesses, veteran-owned businesses, or woman-owned businesses. Set-aside contracts reduce or eliminate competition from large prime contractors. For LA municipal contracts, the SLB program and LBPP function as local set-aside equivalents.
SLB — Small and Local Business: A City of Los Angeles certification program managed through RAMP-LA. Certified SLB firms receive a 10% bid preference on City contracts valued at $100,000 or less, which can effectively lower your apparent bid price by 10% during evaluation. Eligibility requires being principally located in LA and meeting size thresholds.
LBPP — Local Business Preference Program: City of Los Angeles Ordinance No. 188111 (effective March 27, 2024) that extends local business preferences to contracts above the SLB threshold. The LBPP encourages businesses to compete for City contracting, to operate within LA City limits, and to avoid relocating outside the city. Certification is processed through RAMP-LA.
DBE — Disadvantaged Business Enterprise: A federal certification for small businesses that are majority-owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals (most often minority-owned or women-owned firms). DBE status is required by the U.S. Department of Transportation on federally funded projects, including those at LAWA (LAX).
PTAC — Procurement Technical Assistance Center: A network of federally funded centers that provide free one-on-one counseling to help businesses pursue government contracts. In Los Angeles, the PTAC through SBDC helps businesses register in procurement systems, find bid opportunities, review solicitations, and understand compliance requirements. Think of them as your free bid analyst.
SBDC — Small Business Development Center: SBA-funded centers that offer free consulting and low-cost training to small businesses. The LA-area SBDCs include PTAC services for government contracting and are a key channel for reaching certified small businesses pursuing public-sector revenue.
SAM.gov: System for Award Management — the primary federal contractor registration and opportunity database. All businesses must be registered in SAM.gov to be awarded a federal contract. SAM.gov posts federal solicitations, but does NOT cover most City of LA, LA County, or LADWP opportunities, which are published on their own portals.
RAMP-LA: The Regional Alliance Marketplace for Procurement — the City of Los Angeles's centralized vendor registration and solicitation portal. Vendors must register in RAMP-LA before submitting bids on City contracts. RAMP-LA also processes SLB, LBPP, and other certification applications.
Subcontracting Goal / Participation Goal: Many large government contracts include a mandatory or aspirational goal for prime contractors to subcontract a percentage of the work to certified small businesses. When a prime wins a contract with a participation goal, they must actively seek qualified subcontractors — creating an outbound opportunity for small firms who track award notices.
Fit Score: An RFP Tracker concept: a 0–100 score generated by AI analysis of a solicitation against your company profile. It weighs factors like stage timing, set-aside eligibility, document readiness, and deadline proximity to give a plain-English go/no-go signal (Strong fit, Good fit, Watch, or Blocked).
Document Gap: A missing credential, certification, insurance certificate, or compliance document that would block your bid submission. Common gaps include expired general liability insurance, missing bonding capacity, outdated W-9, absent capability statement, or missing SLB certification. RFP Tracker flags document gaps before you read the full packet.
Solicitation Number: A unique identifier assigned to each procurement opportunity by the issuing agency. Use this number when referencing a specific bid in communication with the agency, in your proposal header, and when tracking the opportunity through multiple procurement stages.
Go/No-Go Decision: The internal business decision of whether to invest time and resources in responding to a specific solicitation. Key factors: can you win (fit), can you comply (eligibility), do you have the capacity (resources), and is the investment justified by the contract value. RFP Tracker automates the first two factors.

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