VetBiz Registration for Veterans
This blog is specifically for veterans with businesses who would like to get verified through the Veterans Administration (VA) to get contracts from VA and other parts of the Government.
If you want to do business with the Veterans Administration and for them to claim that they have done business with veteran-owned businesses, you must be verified in the system. The rest of the Government does not necessarily require you to be verified into the system. This is a kind of a self-certification, but this system is specifically designed by VA and other agencies can utilize it as I have utilized it with OPM, USDA, and NIH. They can go and check on VA’s website and verify if you have it or not that gives them the comfort that you have been verified by Veterans Administration.
I am a service-disabled veteran small business owner and I have been through this process multiple times since 2009. Every three years, you must go through this verification. For those of you who are new to this and have not done it, I will walk you through to the parts on the website that you can check to confirm and make sure that you qualify. They have a pre-qualification quiz on their website and when you fill that you can have a clear understanding that you would you qualify or not.
www.vetbiz.va.gov is the starting point, where you can see vendor information pages and can find the pre-qualification quiz to see if your business qualifies or not. They are going to ask for your business information, so you don’t have to be concerned if you answer something incorrect as you can modify your responses.
Business Type
It is a simple process as it's going to ask you what type of business you are? Either an LLC, a corporation, a partnership, or a sole proprietorship and it gives you certain questions based on the type of company you are.
I am going to do a quick example here. In this case, this is an LLC, and we are applying as a service-disabled veteran-owned small business. This is for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, who have a service-connected disability of zero percent or higher. In this case, we will choose SDVOSB.
Assistance
Once you do the aforementioned process, it is going to ask you a series of questions like if you attended CVE’s free pre-application or re-verification webinar. Since it's free, you really have nothing to lose, and I believe there is always something to learn from these so you can click either “yes” or “no.” If you click “no” then it will say if would you like to register and then you can click “yes.” The next question is, “have you considered a verification assistance counselor.” This could be useful and if it is free then why not. Click “no” then it will say would you like to be connected then click, “yes.”
Business Structure
It will now start asking your business structure questions like “is the business owned at least 51 percent by a trust; to this question, either answer “yes” or “no.” The next question is about the business being owned by at least 51% by an ESOP or 401k plan. If you know what these are then you would know how to answer this question and if you don't then you would click “no.” The next question goes like, “Is the business part of a franchise?”, so if you are a franchise owner you will definitely click, “yes.”
Legal Status
Under the section of legal status, the first question is if the business legally organized to conduct business in its state of formation? The location where you are formed, you are legally organized to conduct business there; so obviously you want to click, “yes.”
The next question is if the business is currently in good standing. If the answer to this question is “no” then that's going to be a problem. If it's yes then you will be required to submit a certificate of good standing, which is typically signed by Secretary of the State of that particular State where the business is physically located.
The next question is, “Is the state in which the business is physically located different than the state of formation?” Answer to this question based on your situation. The previous question is followed by another question, “Has the business obtained and kept any and all required permits, licenses, charters, and professional licenses required to operate the business?” Some businesses don't require any of these, some require all of them, so it just depends. So, you can click either “yes” or “no.” The question is “Does the business have a DBA, fictitious name, trade name, or assumed name?” Answer to it based on your situation.
SDVOSB – LLC
The next section under the title, SDVOSB – LLC, will specifically, ask questions about the control that the disabled veteran has in the business.
Do one or more Service-Disabled Veterans unconditionally own at least 51% of each class of member interest?
If there is at least one disabled owner with 51% ownership, then the answer to this question will be “yes.” If there are multiple owners in the company and all disabled veterans own 51% collectively or more then you fulfill the criteria. Let's say three persons equally own a company and there is just one person, who is a service-disabled veteran and the other two are not service-disabled or even veteran then you will not qualify for this program.
The next question is, “Are one or more Service-Disabled Veterans entitled to receive at least 51% of the annual distribution of profits paid to the owners?” I believe you know the answer to this question as it's very similar to the last question but just how many of them are entitled to receive at least 51 percent of profit. If your business meets the criteria then choose, “yes.”
Do one or more Service-Disabled Veterans control the day-to-day operations of the business?
The aforementioned part is one of the most important questions as they are going to ask for documentation to demonstrate: 1) who signs the checks? 2) who signs the contracts? 3) whose name is on the bank signature card? 4) who signed the lease agreement? etc.
I mainly do online banking and I don’t sign anything, so I submit a letter of explanation that says that I don't sign checks anymore as we do that through electronic banking and that is acceptable as I have done that on more than one occasion.
Is the Service-Disabled Veteran able to work for the applicant company during the normal working hours that businesses in that industry normally work?
Answer this based on your situation.
Does at least one Service-Disabled Veteran owner reside within 150 miles of one of the applicant company’s operating locations?
I am sure there are exceptions to the above because of COVID and remote work but that's what they ask. Do one or more Service-Disabled Veterans have the managerial experience of the extent and complexity needed to run the business? We will mark “yes” to it.
Do one or more Service-Disabled Veterans have the managerial experience of the extent and complexity needed to run the business?
We will mark “yes” to it
Do one or more Service-Disabled Veterans possess the technical expertise and hold the required license?
We would click “yes” obviously; why would we do it if we didn't have it.
Does a Service-Disabled Veteran hold the highest officer position in the business as established by the applicant’s governing document(s)?
This is going to be based on the organization you are. This includes articles of organization, operating agreement, or by-laws.
Do one or more Service-Disabled Veterans serve as management members, with control over all decisions of the limited liability company?
In my case, “yes.”
Is a Service-Disabled Veteran the highest compensated individual in the business?
In my case, “yes.”
Does a non-Veteran or entity provide financial support or possess a required license?
In my case “no” but it could be “yes” for you
Does a business relationship exist with one or more non-Veterans or outside entities?
It is up to you buy in my case, it’s “no”
Does your business qualify as small for all NAICS codes under which your business performs work?
For those of you, who are not familiar with NAICS codes, it is a six-digit code that the government uses to identify what kind of work you do. You can google it to find what NAICS code apples in your case.
I will do a real quick NAICS code lookup through the website www.naics.com/search. If you search for example “electrician”, it will identify what NAICS codes represent the kind of work you do. In this example, each one of them has a size standard. For you to qualify as a small business you must be below a particular threshold. This means each NAICS code has different thresholds; some are dollar values, and some are employee numbers.
To be called a small business and qualify you must have less than 500 employees. You can do probably a billion dollars business but if do not have more than 500 employees then you are a small business. If your company is doing less than seven million dollars, you're pretty much safe across the board. It is only for the companies who are doing well over seven million dollars.
Once you have finished filling out the pre-qualification quiz, you click to view results. You must make sure that you pass the entire checklist to qualify.
VA required to do business with Veterans and Service-disabled Veterans
Veteran Administration is required by law that they must do a certain percentage of business with service-disabled veterans on small businesses, as well as veterans on small businesses. They also have a requirement called Vet-first Contracting Program, where they are supposed to market themselves to find service-disabled veteran-owned businesses and veteran-owned businesses.
Once you do this pre-qualification quiz and see that you do qualify then I highly encourage you to go ahead and submit for your verification. It doesn't cost you any money; it does take a little bit of time. There is some effort in the process as they are going to ask you for some private information such as your personal tax returns, business tax returns, your bank signature card, and more.
There is going to be a bunch of documentation that you must give them. It's supporting documentation that answers the requirement that they are asking. I have been through it several times and the first time it is the most difficult but once you have it you can use it the next time. There are some things they will require you to do every single time like your distribution ledger and payroll. Things like articles of formation, articles of organization, or articles of incorporation are one-time events as you would not have to do it every time.
Add NAICS Codes of Primary and Tangent Services
It is highly recommended that you add in the correct NAICS codes. It is important that you not only add NAICS codes of the core things that you do but even the tangent things that you do. If you are in construction and within the construction projects you do electrical, plumbing, and fire alarm work, you should make sure that you get all those NAICS codes that are related to what you do.
When VA searches for companies, they will go in there and search by NAICS code. In one instance, they were looking for something for record storage, but we added ourselves for document scanning and I forgot to add the record storage NAICS code; hence, they could not find me. Luckily one thing led to another, and they called us and said, “we don’t see this particular NAICS code in your VetBiz Profile.” Once they told me, I went ahead and added it immediately.
I hope this blog was helpful for you. I have a library of different blogs on doing business with the government, so feel free to search for them. We are also introducing a free masterclass, which is a small group session of 10 or few companies, so feel free to reach out at www.governmentqb.com.