Searching historical purchase orders and invoices

Beyond solicitations and contract awards, InstantMarkets also indexes historical purchase orders (POs) and invoices from government agencies where this data is publicly available. This gives you a granular view of what agencies actually bought, from whom, and at what price.

What purchase orders and invoices tell you

• Exact products or services purchased — often more specific than an RFP scope of work
• Unit prices and quantities — real transaction prices, not estimates
• Vendor names — who the agency is currently buying from
• Frequency of purchases — how often an agency buys a given category
• Preferred brands or specifications — if the agency consistently orders a specific brand or spec, that's important competitive intelligence

How to search POs and invoices

1. Run a keyword search for your product or service category.
2. In the Opportunity type filter, select Purchase Order or Invoice.
3. Use the Date range filter to focus on recent transactions (e.g., last 12–24 months for the most relevant pricing data).
4. Use the Agency filter to focus on specific agencies you're targeting.

Availability

Purchase order and invoice data is most complete for:

• Federal agencies — USASpending.gov data is well-structured and widely available
• States with open data mandates — California, Texas, New York, and several others publish detailed spending data
• Large municipalities — many major cities publish procurement and spending data as part of open government initiatives

Coverage is more limited for smaller local agencies, school districts, and special districts, which may not publish transaction-level data publicly.

Using PO data in your sales strategy

If you can see that an agency regularly purchases your product category via POs (rather than formal RFPs), it may be worth pursuing a vendor registration or cooperative contract with that agency to position yourself for direct PO awards — which often don't go through a competitive bid process.