The Challenge of the Past Performance Section

In the world of government contracting, your track record is your resume. The 'Past Performance' section of a Request for Proposal (RFP) is often the most critical factor in determining your win probability. However, for many firms, manually compiling these records is a recurring nightmare known as the 'RFP Tax.'

Small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) often struggle to find the right projects to showcase, while mid-market firms face the challenge of managing hundreds of scattered project files. Automating this process isn't just a luxury; it is a strategic revenue unlock that allows you to bid more and win more.

What is Government Past Performance?

Government agencies use past performance to evaluate a contractor's risk. They want to see that you have successfully completed similar work on time and within budget. Typically, this section requires documented evidence of project scope, dollar value, points of contact, and specific achievements.

Why Manual Entry Fails

• Version Control: Teams often use outdated project descriptions.

• Data Silos: Project details are trapped in the minds of busy project managers.

• Inconsistency: Different writers describe the same project in different ways, leading to brand confusion.

• Time Waste: Searching through old PDFs and spreadsheets takes hours that should be spent on strategy.

Step-by-Step: How to Automate Past Performance

1. Build a Centralized Knowledge Hub

Automation begins with organization. To stop the manual search, you need a single source of truth. By centralizing your past project data, you eliminate the need to hunt for CPARS (Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System) ratings or old proposal drafts.

Tools like Settle serve as this centralized knowledge hub. They use AI to ingest your historical data, making every past success instantly searchable for future bids.

2. Use AI to Map Past Performance to RFP Requirements

Every RFP asks for something slightly different. One might ask for 'Cloud Migration' experience, while another asks for 'IT Infrastructure Modernization.' Instead of rewriting your descriptions every time, use AI-powered Q&A automation.

Settle AI can analyze the new RFP's requirements and automatically pull the most relevant snippets from your project history, tailoring the language to match the evaluator’s criteria exactly.

3. Standardize Your Templates

Create a master template for your past performance citations. This should include placeholders for:

• Contract Number and Value

• Period of Performance

• Prime or Subcontractor Status

• Customer Reference Contact Info

• Narrative of Performance Excellence

4. Implement Collaborative Approval Workflows

Accuracy is vital. Once the AI generates a past performance draft, it needs a human touch. Use collaborative workflows to route the draft to the relevant Project Manager for a quick accuracy check. This ensures that the 'efficiency' of AI is balanced with the 'accuracy' of subject matter experts.

The Competitive Advantage of Automation

For SMEs, automation acts as an 'unfair advantage.' It allows a small team to produce the same volume of high-quality bids as a much larger corporation. By automating the discovery-to-submission pipeline, you can find high-fit public RFPs and respond to them in a fraction of the time.

For mid-market firms, automation eliminates the manual 'RFP tax.' Instead of spending fifty hours on a response, your team might spend five, allowing them to focus on high-level strategy and client relationships.

Conclusion

Automating your past performance section is the fastest way to scale your government contracting business. By moving away from manual spreadsheets and toward an AI-powered proposal management platform, you ensure that your best work is always highlighted with precision.

Tools like Settle AI automate this process by transforming your project history into a dynamic asset, helping you win more contracts with less effort.