A UNSPSC code is the category an agency chooses for a contract. UNSPSC is a standard list of goods and services. The agency picks the code that best matches the main purpose of the contract. It is a label for search and reporting. It is not a judgement of quality, and it is not always the label you would have chosen.

If you have not read a notice before, how to read an AusTender contract notice shows where the category sits on the page.

Four levels, read from the left

A full code has eight digits. You read it in four steps. Each step is the digits so far, not a new number stuck on the end.

  • Segment. The first two digits. This is the broad group, such as information technology or building work.
  • Family. The first four digits. A slice of that segment.
  • Class. The first six digits. The level Contract Horizon uses when it compares similar contracts.
  • Commodity. All eight digits. The most specific label.

As a pattern, not as a count of anything we publish: a notebook computer might be coded with a segment for information technology, a family for computer equipment, a class for computers, and a commodity for notebook computers. Two notices for the same kind of work can still carry different codes, because the agency picks the one it thinks fits.

Why the code is often broad or uneven

The person raising the notice chooses one code for the whole contract. A contract that mixes several kinds of work gets a single code for its main purpose. A training course, a software licence, and the helpdesk that supports it might be coded as any one of those, depending on which part the agency thought was the point.

Agencies are not required to use the most specific commodity. Many notices stop at a class or a family, or they pick a neighbouring class that a different buyer would not have used. Searching one exact code will miss work you can do. Searching the description as well, and checking the neighbouring class, catches more of it.

Why the re-tender score uses the class

The re-tender score compares earlier contracts at the same agency in the same class: those first six digits. That is tighter than the two-digit segment, and broad enough that a handful of similar contracts can be counted. If the class has no comparable follow-on, the score can look at the family. It does not treat every contract in the segment as the same work.

How the re-tender score works explains what is counted and what is left out. A higher band means the supplier changed more often in that class at that agency. It is not a promise about the next contract.

Finding the codes that match what you sell

Open the category report. The list is grouped into goods and services. Each category page is one segment, and it shows the contracts in that segment that end in the next 3 to 12 months, the published value, and the agencies that hold them. Open two or three segments that could describe your work, and see which notices actually sound like it. The code on those notices is the one to save.

Which agencies buy what I sell is the same idea from the other direction: start at the category, then see the agencies.

When you know the code, open the category report for that segment, then the contracts list filtered to it.

Contract Horizon is an independent reading of the public record. It is not part of AusTender or the Australian Government.