Your past performance is an asset. Most companies treat it like a memory.
A working library of what your company has actually done, captured while you still remember it.
Past performance is one of the most heavily weighted factors in federal source selection, and it is the one factor you cannot improve during proposal week.
The work is already done. The results already happened. What decides whether that history helps you win is whether anyone wrote it down - with numbers, contract numbers, and a reference who still answers the phone. Companies that maintain a past performance library respond faster, cite stronger examples, and stop losing on relevance they actually had.
This kit explains the difference between past performance and corporate experience, shows you exactly what to capture for every contract, and gives you the worksheets and spreadsheet to start a library this week.
Get the free templates“The company that wins on past performance is rarely the one with better work. It is the one that can prove the work it did.”
Past performance vs. corporate experience
These get used interchangeably in conversation and scored very differently in evaluation.
Specific contracts your company held, where the government can verify what you did and how well you did it.
- Tied to a contract number, customer, period of performance, and dollar value.
- Evaluated for relevance, recency, and quality - usually with CPARS or a reference call.
- Belongs to the company that held the contract, not to an individual employee.
The broader capability story: the work your company does, the domains you operate in, and the scale you can handle.
- Can include commercial work, subcontracts, and aggregate capability.
- Persuasive as context, but rarely scored the way past performance is.
- Useful for filling gaps while you build a verifiable contract record.
Practical takeaway: build the past performance record first, because it is verifiable and scored. Use corporate experience to frame scale and domain depth where a specific contract does not exist yet.
The Proposal Week Test
A solicitation drops Monday and is due in fourteen days. Check every item you could answer today, from written records, without asking anyone.
Check the items you could answer from written records today.
What to capture for every contract
Capture it at award and again at closeout. Reconstructing it two years later is where accuracy goes to die.
Contract identity
- Contract or task order number
- Customer agency, sub-agency, and installation or location
- Prime or subcontractor role, and prime name if a sub
- Contract type (FFP, T&M, CPFF, IDIQ, BPA)
- NAICS and PSC codes
Size and timing
- Total awarded value and funded value to date
- Your company's share of the value
- Period of performance, including option years exercised
- Status: active, completed, or archived
The work itself
- Scope summary in plain language, three to five sentences
- Primary and secondary capabilities demonstrated
- Staffing: peak headcount, key labor categories, clearances
- Tools, platforms, standards, or frameworks used
Proof of performance
- Challenge, approach, and result narrative
- Quantified metrics with a baseline and a source of truth
- CPARS ratings, award fee determinations, or written praise
- Problems encountered and corrective actions taken
References
- Name, title, phone, and email of the government point of contact
- Whether they still hold the role
- Whether permission to list them has been asked and granted
- Date of last contact
What’s inside the kit
Five worksheets in Word, and the same structure as a working spreadsheet you can maintain long term.
Past Performance Record
One page per contract. The single source of truth you copy from during proposal week.
Challenge → Approach → Result
The narrative structure evaluators are trained to look for, written while the work is fresh.
Metrics and Proof Points
Baseline, result, improvement, and the source that lets you defend the claim in a debrief.
Customer Reference Tracker
Who to call, whether they still work there, and when you last spoke.
Past Performance Master Matrix
The one page you scan the day a solicitation drops, to decide what you can cite.
Excel library
Instructions, contract records, narratives, metrics, references, and the master matrix - one workbook you actually keep current.
Start your library this week
Pick your three most relevant contracts and fill out one record each. That alone puts you ahead of most companies your size.
- Word worksheet pack - print, fill, or complete on screen
- Excel workbook - six tabs including the master matrix
- Quarterly maintenance routine and ownership assignments
Get the starter kit
Tell me where to send it and the download begins immediately.
Word and Excel. No newsletter signup required.
Keeping it alive: the quarterly review
Thirty minutes, once a quarter, on someone’s calendar with a name attached. Libraries do not decay because people are careless - they decay because no one owns them.
The quarterly checklist
- Add every contract, task order, and option year awarded this quarter.
- Update period of performance, funded value, and status on active work.
- Refresh metrics with current numbers rather than award-day estimates.
- Verify every reference still works there; confirm title, phone, and email.
- Capture any CPARS rating, award fee determination, or written customer praise.
- Flag records aging out of the typical three-year recency window.
- Mark retired work archived - never delete it; you lose your own history.
Assign ownership
- Name one library owner - a person, not a department.
- Put a recurring thirty-minute quarterly review on that person's calendar.
- Decide who supplies contract data (contracts or finance).
- Decide who supplies metrics (program or delivery leads).
- Decide who owns reference relationships (business development or the PM).
A library is the foundation. Capture strategy is what turns it into wins.
Once your record is written down, the next step is choosing the right opportunities and building a capture strategy before the RFP is released.
Disclaimer
Nothing on this page or in any accompanying template, assessment, checklist, or report constitutes legal, financial, or compliance advice. These materials are general-purpose starting points drawn from professional experience. Review all information thoroughly against your own internal needs, company structure, contractual obligations, and regulatory environment, and have your legal counsel review anything you adopt before you rely on it.