How does USAspending identify who received a contract?

Who is the recipient?

The USAspending glossary defines a recipient as a company, organization, individual or government entity (state, local, tribal, federal or foreign) that receives funding from the U.S. government. For contracts, the entity that receives the award directly is the "prime recipient", defined as one that receives funding directly from the federal government through an agreement called a prime award.

The recipient name, the glossary says, is the same as what is registered in the System for Award Management, SAM.gov, and is usually the official name of the business. The official definition says the name relates to the unique identifier and, for U.S. based companies, is the name the business ordinarily files in formation documents with the state.

What is a Unique Entity ID?

The Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) is an alphanumeric code created in SAM.gov that is used to uniquely identify the commercial, nonprofit or business entities registered to do business with the federal government. It is the key that lets two records be recognised as belonging to the same registered entity even if a name is spelled differently. The glossary also keeps an older identifier, the Parent DUNS, defined as the unique identification number for the ultimate parent of an awardee or recipient, currently the nine-digit number maintained by Dun and Bradstreet as the global parent DUNS number.

What is the ultimate parent?

Records can carry an "ultimate parent legal entity name", defined simply as the name of the ultimate parent of the awardee or recipient. That field is how a contract awarded to a subsidiary can be tied to the company at the top of the group. Whether a particular record has it filled in, and whether it matches the company you have in mind, has to be checked on the record.

Why might a listed company not appear under its own name?

A contract is awarded to one registered legal entity, which can be a subsidiary rather than the group's top company. The record then shows that entity's name and UEI, and the group's name may appear only in the ultimate parent field, so a search on the group's name alone can miss it. A match through the parent field can find it, but the parent field is as entered. OQRO's methodology page describes how it classifies filings, and any match of a contract to a listed company should be read next to the original record.

What is a sub-award?

The glossary defines a sub-award as an agreement that a prime recipient makes with another entity to perform a portion of its award, and the entity that receives it is the sub-recipient. Sub-awards can be called sub-contracts or sub-grants. The glossary explains that sub-award amounts are funded by prime award obligations and outlays. So a company that does the work under a larger contract may be a sub-recipient, and the prime award's amount is not its own revenue.

Who pays and who administers?

The awarding agency is the agency that issues and administers the award, and it usually pays out of its own budget. In some cases another agency, called the funding agency, finances it. The awarding office and funding office are further levels below the agency. Reading both tells you which part of the government signed the agreement and which paid for it.

What do NAICS and PSC add?

Each contract record carries a NAICS code, a six-digit code for the industry the work falls into, and a Product or Service Code (PSC), a four-character code that identifies the type of product, service or research purchased. The glossary's own example says a contract's NAICS code might point to an industry such as industrial building construction while the PSC says what is specifically being purchased. They describe the work, not the company.

What is "multiple recipients"?

For some financial assistance awards the recipient name is "MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS", which the glossary says indicates an award aggregated to protect the personally identifiable information of a collection of individuals.

How do you check a record?

Open the award's page on USAspending and read, in order: the recipient name and its UEI, the ultimate parent field if it is filled, the awarding agency and office, the funding agency, the award type and the NAICS and PSC codes. Then compare the recipient with the company you had in mind. If you started from a listed company's name and the record shows another name, check the parent field and the company's own filings for the subsidiary's name before treating them as the same. If the record is a sub-award, note that the company is a sub-recipient and the prime recipient is the party that signed with the government.

None of this requires judgment about the money: the record's amounts are obligations, as the glossary defines them, and the potential amount is a ceiling.

What this does not tell you

A recipient record says who the government signed with and how much was obligated, not who benefits financially or whether a listed company's results were affected. A parent link is only as good as the data entered. A contract amount, as covered in contract modifications explained, is an obligation and may include a ceiling that is never spent. OQRO's contracts page shows awards to listed companies and links each to the original USAspending record.