SBA  - Fix Your Website for Online Certifications

Oh, where do I start?  The SBA website has been down for days, the new online certification portal is in beta and if you use your old login information you will go to pages that are no longer supported by the new system. But… you won’t know that, because you can still click on links within those unsupported pages.  In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat for directions. Alice asks, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” The Cheshire Cat replies, “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”  

I want to login to finalize a client’s WOSB application but there is no path in Wonderland that leads there. Here is the back story.  The SBA online certification portal temporarily shut down in August 2024 and was initially expected to reopen in early September 2024 after a major upgrade to the certification systems. However, summer led to fall and by late October, the portal was still not fully operational for new applications. This prolonged delay affected small businesses waiting to obtain certifications for federal contracting programs, such as the 8(a), HUBZone, and Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) programs, including my clients.   

If you put in a ticket on their help desk you may get a reply …  if you live long enough or still have the same email address.  It is unbelievably bad. 

Centre Law, in addition to representing federal contractors, has contracts with the federal government.  I tried and tried and tried to renew our WOSB certification for our OASIS award, but I could not do it.  Our help desk ticket with “urgent” on it was answered a month later.   We lost the WOSB OASIS award because we could not access our original WOSB certification on the SBA website, but we were able to keep the OASIS small business award.  Fortunately for us and the other thousands of small businesses, SBA is not involved in certifying businesses as “small”.    

On another note, I found all our Centre documents on the “no longer supported pages” on the SBA website so I can move them over to the new online portal when the website comes back online.  That is, if you can find the link to log in.  That log in link is buried.  You would think that there would be flashing lights on the log in here link.  I don’t design webpages, but SBA you might want to think about that. Perhaps a large text box.   Just a suggestion. 

 I am a Vice Chair on the ABA Small Business Committee.  The chair of that committee set up a meeting with SBA next week for a general discussion. I shall definitely attend.  

Please share your experience with SBA.  

Interested in this topic or want to get in touch with Barbara about a legal matter? Feel free to reach out to her via email.