How to Identify FSC Codes: Quick and Simple

Government contracting journey. Today, we're going to walk you through a valuable step in this process that will save you lots of time and frustration. By identifying your FSC codes right away. You'll be ready to bid immediately once you get into dibs. And you'll have no wasted time from searching through hundreds of solicitations that would not match your company's capabilities. So let's get started. FSC codes are four digit codes. They are used by the government to identify and categorize products purchased by the DoD. It's the government's way to group products into families. Identifying these FSC codes at first can seem overwhelming since there are over 600 different codes. However, we've made this process very quick and easy. As you begin looking into opportunities for your company, you will see FSC codes and NSN numbers with each opportunity. So let's talk about the difference between the two. As we discussed earlier, FSC codes are four digit codes that are used to categorize products into broad groups. And NSNs or national stock numbers are 13 digit codes that are used to identify specific items. So FSC codes are General classification and NSNs are a precise identifier for an individual item. So as you can see right here, this is an example of an NSN and an FSC code. NSNs are 13 digits and in the first four digits of that 13 digit number is your FSC code. So an easy way to think about it, when you think of an FSC code, think of a broad category such as electronics. And when you think of an NSN number, think of a specific SKU number for an individual product. As we discussed earlier, choosing your FSC code right away is your fast track to winning your first government contract with the DoD. You won't waste your time by looking through opportunities that you would never be able to bid on. So we've created two resources to make this very simple and very fast. So let's get started with our first resource. Our first resource that we will provide for you is called FSC Codes Group List. So this shows all FSC group numbers 10 through 99. This will narrow down specific group numbers first so that it will save you time later. When you look at the FSC codes that show all 600, you won't have to look through each one individually. You can just find your specific group number. So let's find our group number right now. So if I'm a manufacturing company, I'm going to search through and look for anything that matches my capabilities. So this will be specific to your company. Once you see something that a group number that matches your capabilities, like 53 would be great for our company. So I would highlight it. You can also print this off, put a check mark next to it, and I'm going to keep going. 54 would match our company. I would highlight or put a check next to that, see what else as I'm looking through, I think that 59 would match our capabilities and also 93. So I would take those four group numbers and look at our next document together. Our second resource is called FSC Codes Item List. So, as stated before, There are over 600 different FSC codes on this document, which would take entirely too long for you to read through individually. So what we're going to do is we're going to take the group codes that we found on the last document, the last resource that we went through, we're going to find those group codes and only read through that group to see what would be the best match for our company. So, for example, our first group code that we found on our last resource was 53. So remember that was just the first two digits of your FSC code. So this one is 10. I'm going to scroll through until I see 53 as the first two digits and in the FSC code, which is right here. And we've color coded them for you just to make it easier. So I'm going to only look through the ones that are in this green section, which is 53. So as I go through, I'm going to see which items my company, which I said is a manufacturing company, could produce. And if I see any that look like a good fit, I'm going to either highlight or if you want to print this off, you can put a check mark next to it. Also, my next group code that I found on my last resource was 54. So I'm going to read through this next section also and continue to do the same for my other two group codes. So once you have put a check or you've highlighted your items, these will be the FSC codes that you will use once you get inside dibs to find opportunities. So now that you've identified your FSC codes, once you get into dibs, your search time will be much more valuable. You'll be able to find products that match your company's capabilities very quickly. You might have several FSC codes at first, but you'll be able to narrow those down as you begin bidding on opportunities based on prices and other factors. Thank you for joining us today in our tutorial. On identifying your company's FSC codes. Be sure to like and subscribe for more valuable government contracting content. See you next time.