Practitioner’s guide to procurement pricing

Goal

Generate a common understanding of pricing and its strategic importance in the achievement of key procurement objectives and value to Canada.

Description

Public Services and Procurement Canada has developed the Practitioner's Guide for Procurement Pricing. This guide is intended to inform those involved in Government of Canada contracting of the required steps and factors to be considered in making procurement pricing decisions. This includes aligning the pricing with the overall procurement strategy, objectives and priorities. We are updating guidance on contract costing and pricing in response to independent studies conducted on Canada’s current pricing practices. We have performed broad stakeholder consultations, research and international benchmarking against practices employed by other jurisdictions to incorporate key messages learned into the guide. The intention is for the guidance to be informative and encourage innovative solutions to ultimately enhance competitiveness. The guide also brings clarity on how pricing is intended to work in a contract, as well as best practices for managing pricing throughout the acquisition life cycle. In order to remain relevant and continually improve, the guide will be renewed on a regular basis in a consultative manner with those involved in contracting with the Government of Canada.

Status

In progress. In February 2019, we launched phase 1 of the Practitioner’s Guide for Procurement Pricing, which introduced guidance on the basis of payments, incentives, and a new costing standard. Phase 2 of the guide, released in December 2019, provides additional guidance on basis of payment and the use of incentives, as well as new discussion papers on assessing the acceptability of contract costing practices.

Phase 3 of the guide which addresses the profit determination process was released in December 2020.