The General Services Administration's (GSA) Transactional Data Reporting (TDR) pilot program has been deemed a "flawed" success, with inaccurate and unusable data that could cause government agencies to pay more for goods and services, according to the agency's Inspector General. TDR, established in 2016, requires Multiple Award Schedule contractors to report transactional data, such as prices paid by government customers for products and services under a contract, without having to disclose commercial pricing or comply with price reduction requirements.

The OIG report found that the data is unreliable and unusable and that GSA's fiscal year 2020 evaluation of the program, which deemed it a success, was problematic because the data has never been used in contract price negotiations. The watchdog stated that the evaluation metrics to determine whether the program was used for negotiations and lower industry burden were deficient and that the transactional data reported for 87% of the FY 2022 TDR program sales cannot be used for meaningful price analysis. The Inspector General has recommended that GSA stop expanding TDR until the problems are fixed, or the program is terminated and that GSA addresses the issues with data and usage as detailed in the report within one year.