Qualify to Do Business with the City

All businesses must qualify to do business with the City before the City can award a contract or pay an invoice. The minimum requirements are described below. Depending on the product or service you sell to the City, additional compliance requirements may apply.

Mandatory Forms

At a minimum, in order to qualify to do business with the City, a vendor must submit three documents:

1. IRS Form W-9 -Request for Taxpayer Identification Number

2. P-25 - Business Tax Declaration

3. HRC 12B-101 Declaration of Nondiscrimination in Contracts and Benefits

For your convenience you may download a Vendor Registration Package which contains these three forms as well as a supplemental vendor application, which collects your firm’s product and service information so that City departments can search for your firm in our internal databases by product and service type.

Getting paid for your goods and/or services from the City:

1. The Controller and Office of Contract Administration (OCA) have announced that starting in January 2012, all new and extended/renewed contracts will require vendors to accept electronic payments.  This requirement includes professional service, construction, non-profits and other contracts.  This also includes departmental blankets and purchase orders.
2. Our goal is to make Automated Clearing House (ACH or "electronic") payments the norm for all City vendors.  The City uses Paymode-X, an independent service through the Bank of America, to process Automated Clearing House (ACH) "electronic" payments.
3. Electronic payments are processed every business day and are safe and secure.  There is no charge from Paymode or the City to use this payment service.
4. You must have an issued City vendor number, have all compliance paperwork submitted and approved by the City, and have a signed and executed contract before payments can be issued from the City.
5. Once you are issued your City vendor number, you will receive notification from the City's Vendor File Support division.  This notification will include instructions on how to sign up to receive payments through Paymode-X.
6. To sign up for electronic payment, visit www.sfgov.org/ach
7. You will need the following in order to sign up:
   • You must be your company's authorized financial representative.
   • Your company's legal name, main telephone number and all physical and remittance addresses used by your company
   • Your company's U.S. federal employer identification number (EIN) or Social Security number (if you are a sole proprietor)
   • Your company's bank account information, including routing and account numbers

Please note: Chapter 12B (the Equal Benefits Ordinance) of the San Francisco Administrative Code prohibits the City from entering into contracts or leases with any entity that discriminates in the provision of benefits between employees with domestic partners and employees with spouses and/or between the domestic partners and spouses of employees. The City requires that vendors submit along with their HRC 12B-101 Declaration of Nondiscrimination in Contracts and Benefits copies of their benefit plans and personnel handbook that evidence compliance with the Human Rights Commission’s standards. The City cannot award a contract if a Vendor does not offers equal benefits; however IF the Vendor has demonstrated a commitment to comply but requires additional time to update its benefits and policies, the City may grant additional time. Also, in certain limited instances the City may waive the equal benefits requirement.

To date, over 16,000 firms have complied with the City’s Equal Benefits Ordinance and today every state in the Union has an insurance provider that provides coverage to Domestic Partners. There is a clear and easy path forward to comply with the City’s equal benefits requirements but the process does take time. We strongly encourage that you plan ahead and start by visiting City Administrator's Contract Monitoring Division to learn more about the City’s Equal Benefits requirements and successes.

Supplemental Forms

Depending on the requirements specified in the bid you are responding to, you may be requested to complete one of the below forms. These supplemental forms are bid specific and are required in addition to the mandatory forms above.