Federal exclusion screening vs checking SAM.gov by hand
Checking SAM.gov by hand confirms whether a vendor is excluded today, but it leaves no dated record of what the list said at award time, doesn't scale across a vendor portfolio, and can't answer the point-in-time question every auditor asks. SAM.gov carries 324,126 active exclusion records; in one bounded Fonteum analysis, 112 prime awards worth $1.6M went to 21 recipients while each held an active exclusion.
Published June 20, 2026 · Last reviewed June 2026 · Capability comparison — public facts only
From a manual SAM.gov lookup to award-time, attested screening
| Capability | Manual SAM.gov checks | Fonteum |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | One entity at a time, typed into the SAM.gov search box. | The full GSA exclusion registry — 324,126 active records — screened in a single pass. |
| Point-in-time status | Today's status only — the screen shows what the list says now. | As-of screening — re-derive what SAM.gov said on the date a contract was signed. |
| Identity resolution | A name or UEI typed by hand, with no record of how it was matched. | UEI-, CAGE-, and name-keyed match against the registry, with the basis recorded. |
| Portfolio scale | Re-check every vendor, by hand, every cycle. | A full vendor list screened in one pass via API or bulk export. |
| Award-time evidence | No record of a vendor's status on the day the contract was awarded. | An exclusion-active-at-award-date join — the mechanism behind the Leakage Report. |
| Match provenance | A screenshot with a timestamp you have to trust. | Source record, exclusion type, and snapshot date stamped on every match. |
| Refresh cadence | As current as your last manual lookup. | Tracked against a daily SAM.gov exclusion snapshot. |
| Audit trail | A folder of dated PDFs, assembled after the fact. | An attestation chain plus a downloadable evidence artifact. |
Descriptions reflect the manual SAM.gov screening pattern — searching the public exclusion registry by hand — not any single vendor or service. SAM.gov remains the authoritative source; figures cite Fonteum's published federal-contracting research.
What a manual SAM.gov check leaves uncovered
An award to an excluded party is the failure mode
Federal rules bar awards to excluded parties (FAR 9.405; 2 CFR part 180). Yet in one bounded Fonteum analysis, 112 prime awards worth $1.6M went to 21 recipients while each held an active federal exclusion. A manual SAM.gov check at award time is the control that is supposed to catch this — and it is the control that is hardest to prove ran.
The point-in-time question is the one a manual check can't answer
A live SAM.gov lookup tells you a vendor's status today. An auditor asks a different question: what did the list say on the day the contract was signed? Without a dated snapshot, that answer has to be reconstructed from memory — or it cannot be answered at all.
Manual checks don't scale across a vendor portfolio
Screening one vendor in the SAM.gov UI is quick. Re-screening a few hundred vendors every solicitation cycle, and keeping a dated record of each, is the task that quietly lapses. A registry-wide screen turns that into one repeatable pass.
A clear result needs a record, not a screenshot
Suspension-and-debarment programs are judged on evidence. A UEI-keyed match against a dated SAM.gov snapshot, wrapped in an attestation chain and exportable as an artifact, is the record a screenshot of a search result does not provide.
Compare other ways to screen
Multi-source exclusion screening vs doing it yourself →
The healthcare side — screening the OIG LEIE and state Medicaid lists by hand.
Exclusion screening vs single-list checks →
Multi-source, identity-resolved screening with match provenance vs checking one list.
Provenanced provider data vs raw public files →
Snapshot-dated, attestation-wrapped records vs parsing bulk federal CSVs yourself.
Common questions
- Can't I just check SAM.gov myself for free?
- Yes — SAM.gov exclusion search is free and authoritative for a single entity's status today. The limits show up at scale and over time: a manual check doesn't retain what the list said on a past date, doesn't produce a dated audit record, and is impractical to run across a large vendor portfolio every solicitation cycle.
- What does a manual SAM.gov check miss?
- It misses the award-time record and the point-in-time question. A live lookup shows current status, not what SAM.gov said when a contract was signed. It also leaves no dated, re-derivable evidence trail, and it doesn't scale: each of the 324,126 active exclusion records and each vendor has to be checked one at a time.
- How can a vendor receive an award while excluded?
- Most often a screening gap, not intent: the award-time check is skipped, run against a stale copy, or matched on a name that doesn't tie to the excluded entity. In one bounded Fonteum analysis, 112 prime awards worth $1.6M went to 21 recipients during an active exclusion window — exactly the gap an award-time, point-in-time screen closes.
- How does Fonteum prove a vendor's status at award time?
- By retaining dated snapshots of the SAM.gov exclusion registry and joining them to award dates. A screening result can be re-derived as of a past date rather than only the current list, so the question of what the list said when a contract was signed has a dated, attested answer rather than a reconstruction.
- Does this replace SAM.gov?
- No. SAM.gov remains the authoritative federal exclusion registry. Fonteum is the screening and evidence layer on top of it: registry-wide coverage in one pass, NPI- and UEI-keyed identity matching, dated point-in-time snapshots, and an attested audit artifact. Teams use the two together rather than choosing one.
Screen your vendor list with an award-time record.
Read the federal-contracting findings in the Leakage Report, see the exclusion landscape in the Debarment Scorecard, or request access to screen a list.
- /gov/research/contracts-awarded-during-active-exclusion → The Leakage Report — awards signed during an active federal exclusion.
- /gov/research/federal-debarment-scorecard → How the 324,126 active SAM.gov exclusions break down by agency.
- /screening → How exclusion screening works, plus a free roster screen.
- /sources → Every federal and state source family with tier and cadence.