DPAS Rated Order: Rating Codes Chart, DO-A1 and DX Priority Ratings on Purchase Orders

What makes a purchase order a DPAS rated order

A rated order is an ordinary commercial purchase order that carries four extra things. 15 CFR 700.12(a) lists them, and the Commerce Department step-by-step guide repeats them in the same order: a priority rating made up of a rating symbol and a program identification symbol, such as DO-A1 or DX-A2; a required delivery date or dates, where the regulation is explicit that the words immediately or as soon as possible do not count as a date; the written signature on a manually placed order or the digital signature or name on an electronic one; and a certification statement that reads in substance, this is a rated order certified for national defense use and you are required to follow all the provisions of the Defense Priorities and Allocations System regulation (15 CFR part 700).

If any one of the four is missing, it is not a rated order. That is not a technicality. Commerce warns that a person is not protected against claims if an unrated order is treated as DPAS rated, because the protection in 15 CFR 700.90 depends on actually complying with the regulation. So the first job on an incoming order is to read four specific fields off the document and decide whether the clock has started.

DO and DX: the only two rating symbols

15 CFR 700.11(a) establishes exactly two levels. All DO rated orders rank equally with each other and take preference over unrated orders. All DX rated orders rank equally with each other and take preference over both DO rated orders and unrated orders. There is no third tier that outranks DX except a Directive issued by Commerce under 15 CFR 700.62, which takes preference over any DX, DO, or unrated order as stipulated in the Directive itself.

The program identification symbol that follows the rating symbol carries no priority at all. The regulation states it plainly: program identification symbols, in themselves, do not connote any priority. A DO-A1 order for aircraft parts and a DO-C9 miscellaneous order sit at exactly the same priority level. The symbol tells you which approved program is being supported, which matters for record keeping and for what rating you pass down to your own suppliers, not for who gets scheduled first.

The acceptance clock, and the two shorter ones nobody expects

Under 15 CFR 700.13(d)(1) you must accept or reject in writing, on paper or electronically, within 15 working days of receiving a DO rated order and within 10 working days of receiving a DX rated order. Reject and you have to give reasons in writing. Those are the numbers most people know.

The two they miss sit in 700.13(d)(2). If a rated order is placed for emergency preparedness and carries the extra statement required by 700.12(b), the order itself sets the deadline, and the minimum it may specify is 6 hours after receipt when an authorized person is responding to a hazard that has already occurred, or 12 hours after receipt when preparing for an imminent hazard. An order like that can arrive in a purchasing mailbox on a Friday afternoon and expire before anyone opens the PDF.

There is a third clock after acceptance. If shipment or performance will be late, 700.13(d)(3) requires you to notify the customer immediately, give the reason, and advise a new date. If you do that verbally, written or electronic confirmation has to follow within one working day.

When you must reject, and when you may

Mandatory acceptance is the default: 700.13(a) says a person shall accept every rated order received and must fill it regardless of other rated or unrated orders already accepted, and shall not discriminate against rated orders by charging more or imposing different terms than for comparable unrated work.

Mandatory rejection is the mirror image and it surprises people. Under 700.13(b) you must not accept a rated order for a delivery date you cannot meet. You have to tell the customer the earliest date you can make and offer to accept on that basis. Critically, a scheduling conflict with previously accepted lower rated or unrated orders is not a sufficient reason to reject, because those orders are the ones that get pushed. The same section forbids accepting a DO order that would interfere with an already accepted DO or DX order, and a DX order that would interfere with an already accepted DX order.

Optional rejection under 700.13(c) covers the commercial cases, as long as you do not discriminate between customers: the buyer will not meet your regular terms of sale or payment, the order is for an item you do not supply or a service you do not perform, the item is made only for your own use and you have filled no orders for it in two years, the buyer makes the item themselves, or acceptance would violate another Commerce action.

Flow-down: the rating follows the part down the supply chain

This is where most suppliers first meet DPAS, and it is the part that turns one government order into dozens of rated purchase orders. 15 CFR 700.15(a) requires you to use rated orders with your own suppliers to get the industrial resources needed to fill a rated order, using the priority rating from the customer order. The regulation gives the example directly: hold a DO-A3 order for a navigation system, need semiconductors to build it, and you place a DO-A3 order for the semiconductors.

700.15(b) then says every one of the four required elements has to appear on each successive order, so the rating continues from contractor to subcontractor to supplier throughout the entire supply chain. Practically, the certification statement and the rating have to be printed on the PO you send out, not just noted in a file.

The three substitutions that trip up experienced buyers

MRO becomes H7. Under 700.17(a)(4), when you place a rated order for maintenance, repair, and operating supplies, you keep the rating symbol from the customer order but swap the program identification symbol to H7. Holding a DO-A3 order and buying MRO to produce against it means placing a DO-H7 order, not a DO-A3 one.

Combined orders become H1. 700.17(c) lets you combine DX and DO rated orders from one or several customers as long as the quantities at each level are separately and clearly identified. If the combined orders carry different program identification symbols, you must use H1, giving DO-H1 or DX-H1. The same H1 rule applies under 700.17(b)(3) when combining inventory replacement orders.

Inventory replacement is always DO. If you filled a rated order out of inventory, 700.17(b) lets you place a rated order to replace those items, but only within 90 days of using the inventory, and only with a DO rating symbol. You may not use DX to replenish, even when the inventory went into a DX order.

The dollar floor, and the items you cannot rate at all

700.17(f) sets a threshold that saves a lot of unnecessary paperwork: you are not required to put a priority rating on an order for less than $125,000, or one half of the Simplified Acquisition Threshold in FAR 2.101, whichever is greater, provided you can get delivery in time without it. That is a floor on the obligation, not a prohibition.

At the other end, 700.18(b) names eight things you may not place a rated order for without a specific official action from Commerce: copper raw materials, crushed stone, gravel, sand, scrap, slag, central steam heat, and waste paper. 700.18(a) adds the general limits, including that you may not rate an order to get delivery earlier than needed, a larger quantity than needed beyond a minimum procurable quantity, or plant expansion and production equipment without separate rating authority.

Amendments that restart the clock, and amendments that do not

Worth knowing before you treat a revised PO as routine. 700.16(c) states that an amendment which significantly alters your original production or delivery schedule constitutes a new rated order as of the date it is received, and you have to accept or reject it again under 700.13. 700.16(d) lists what does not count as a new order: a change of shipping destination, a reduction in the total amount, an increase with negligible impact on deliveries, a minor variation in size or design before production starts, or any change you and the customer agree on. 700.16(b) covers the upgrade case, where an unrated order is amended into a rated one or a DO becomes a DX, and preferential treatment starts on the date the change is received.

What you have to keep, and for how long

15 CFR 700.91(a) requires accurate and complete records of any transaction covered by the regulation, preserved for at least three years, under OMB control number 0694-0053. The regulation does not mandate any particular system, but it does require enough detail that an examiner can determine whether each transaction complied. In practice that means the incoming order with its rating, your written acceptance or rejection, and the rated orders you flowed down, which is a document retention problem before it is a compliance problem.

Where extraction fits, stated honestly

PurchaseOrders reads the rated order you received and returns the fields as structured data: the priority rating, the program identification symbol, the required delivery dates, the buyer and ship-to, the contract or order number, and every line item with quantity and unit price. That gives you a rated order register you can sort, a date to run the acceptance clock from, and clean line data to build the flow-down orders your suppliers need.

What it does not do, and we would rather be blunt: it does not accept or reject an order on your behalf, does not track the 15 or 10 working day deadline for you, does not decide whether a rating was properly applied, does not file Form BIS-999 or request special priorities assistance, does not produce your flow-down purchase orders, and is not a DPAS compliance system. It is the data capture step in front of whatever you already use to run the process.