The intent of the guidelines is to provide clear instructions to the commercial vendors of DNA proficiency tests. These guidelines address the needs of the forensic community in its effort to assess the quality of the work it produces as well as the competence of its examiners. The guidelines apply specifically to commercial proficiency test providers. These are the agencies that market and sell proficiency test sets to forensic laboratories. Several of the current proficiency test providers do not manufacture the tests they sell. Thus, these guidelines have been written to be inclusive of the manufacturing, marketing, and evaluation steps used by commercial vendors. The guidelines pertain to the proficiency test design review, personnel, quality assurance, facilities, equipment, supplies, standard operating procedures, laboratory quality control, predistribution testing, reserve samples, records, distribution, proficiency test forms and reports, confidentiality of results, postdistribution control and complaint control, and internal administrative audits.