Glossary / Contracts
Task Order
A Task Order (TO) is an individual order issued under an IDIQ or multiple-award contract that defines a specific scope of work, price, and delivery schedule. Task orders are competed among prime holders under the fair-opportunity process (FAR 16.505) or, less commonly, awarded sole-source. Task orders can themselves be FFP, CPFF, T&M, or hybrid. They are the actual work-generating instruments on IDIQs: the parent contract sets the framework, but no revenue flows until task orders issue.
Why it matters to your pipeline
Winning the parent IDIQ is only the beginning. Task-order capture is where the real revenue is earned, usually on compressed timelines (often a few weeks or less to respond) with page-limited responses. Firms that treat task-order capture as a distinct, repeatable discipline, with pricing templates, past-performance libraries, and quick-turn red teams, build task-order portfolios at scale. Firms that treat each task order as a bespoke effort struggle to keep up.
When this term shows up in an opening GovSmith finds for you, your vCM explains what it means for that pursuit and does whatever it calls for. You decide; we do the work.
Example
A services firm holds prime seats on three major IDIQs. It has a 4-person dedicated task-order capture team that responds to 60+ task orders per year, winning ~20. Over 5 years, task-order revenue from those three parent contracts totals $340M.
Find out what applies to you
Some terms will matter to your business right away and some won’t for years. A vCM can tell you which are which.