Prospects often evaluate multiple options before deciding, which means accuracy and efficiency are crucial for closing deals.
A well-structured quote approval process ensures sales proposals are accurate, professional, and compliant with company policies.
From quote creation to final approval, this process includes critical steps to catch errors, streamline workflows, and build customer trust.
Using the right tools and strategies, businesses can optimize their quote approval process to improve speed and precision and close more deals.
Quote approval process
Sales quotes need to be approved before they can be sent to customers, and this usually involves a multi-step process that takes place behind the scenes.
Quote approvals are necessary to ensure accuracy and professionalism by putting the company’s best foot forward in sales proposals.
The quote approval process can be unique to each company but generally consists of several steps required, from quote generation to a proposal being sent to a prospective customer.
What steps are involved in the quote approval process?
Each company may have its unique process, but generally, quote approval involves the following steps.
- Quote creation: The sales rep or team creates a quote for a product or service.
- Quote review: Team members review the quote for accuracy. This can include sales managers, legal and compliance teams, product teams, and more.
- Approval order: The quote is sent to designated team members based on criteria like the product or service line, quote value, or customer segment. During this step, team members can approve the quote or reject it and request revisions.
- Edits and revisions. If necessary, the sales rep revises the quote based on feedback. Once this is complete, they resubmit the quote for re-review.
- Final approval: After revisions are made and the quote is approved, the sales rep can send the quote to the customer.
Why is quote approval important in sales?
Inaccurate quotes can lead to costly mistakes.
Quote approval is important because it provides a checks-and-balances system to ensure accurate pricing and terms and conditions before the proposal reaches a customer.
When quotes are delivered with errors, it can damage customer trust, lead to a longer sales cycle due to back and forth or renegotiations, impact profitability from inaccurate pricing, and even lead to compliance or legal issues.
What are approval rules?
Quote approval rules are pre-determined conditions that dictate when a particular individual or team must approve a quote.
For example, a sales manager may need to approve a quote if it exceeds a certain price point, or a different team member may need to approve discounts or other pricing options.
Quote approvals help to reduce errors by establishing specific criteria for when quotes need to be reviewed by designated approvers.
What are automated quote approvals?
Automated quote approvals help to simplify the approval process by automatically sending quotes to designated approvers.
This system follows a predefined workflow, so once a quote is ready for review, it will be automatically moved through the approval chain.
Benefits of automated quote approvals:
- Increased accuracy: Automating the process minimizes human error, ensuring quotes are sent with correct pricing and terms.
- Improved efficiency: Automatic triggers and notifications help to reduce bottlenecks and speed up the approval process
CPQ quote approval process
Automation makes the quote creation process easier for everyone, and CPQ (Configure Price Quote) software helps teams create error-free quotes quickly.
CPQ solutions help reps create tailored quotes for complex products or services and remove the guesswork and manual calculation processes.
Platforms like PandaDoc CPQ offer several features to help teams generate fast, accurate quotes, including:
- Dynamic pricing models and rules engines: Create playbooks and define specific rules around product configurations and pricing.
- Guided selling: Helps reps navigate the quoting process to avoid errors.
- CRM integration: Sync data between CRM systems like HubSpot and Salesforce to avoid data entry errors and centralize customer data in a single platform.
- Reporting and analytics: Get actionable insights and track quotes and sales to measure performance and show ROI.
CPQ software also helps with the approval process by letting users set up approval rules and workflows to ensure quotes are reviewed and meet requirements.
How CPQ tools simplify the quote approval process
- Automated approval rules: Set up predefined approval rules based on deal size, discounts, or product configurations.
- Conditional approvals: Customize approvals for different scenarios, such as high-valued deals or bundled pricing.
- Approval workflows: Create step-by-step workflows to outline who needs to approve quotes and in what order.
- Real-time notifications: Keep team members in the loop with notifications when a quote is ready to review.
- Audit trails: Track every step of the review process to ensure accuracy.
Streamline quote approvals with CPQ
By implementing clear approval rules and using automation through CPQ software, you can eliminate errors, reduce bottlenecks, and accelerate deal closures.
Investing in the right tools and workflows can help you improve operational efficiency and strengthen customer trust and satisfaction.
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