Proposals

What to do first

Open a lead and choose + Proposal under Proposals. The builder opens on a new draft, with the lead's offering and quantity already on it as the first line, at the offering's price. Add any other lines, set the terms, save, and mark it as sent once it has gone to the client.

The Proposals page

Growth › Proposals lists every proposal's latest version, where it stands, and what needs somebody.

Across the top:

• Open proposals. What the proposals still out are worth, and how many.
• Awaiting approval. Proposals whose discount is over your workspace's limit and is waiting for a manager.
• Expiring in 3 days. Sent proposals about to run out.
• Proposal win rate. Of the proposals accepted or declined in the current cycle, the share accepted.

Four views: Open, Approval, Accepted and All. Each row shows the reference and version, the client, the title, how many lines, who owns it, any discount, the days left on a sent proposal, the total and where it stands.

New proposal starts one from this page. It asks who it is for: a lead in the pipeline, or a client already on the books. A proposal for an existing client needs no lead; the client's account page has its own Proposals card and + Proposal too.

Where a proposal stands

• Draft. Being written. Only a draft can be changed.
• Awaiting approval. The discount is over the limit and a manager has been asked.
• Approved. The discount has been approved; it can be sent.
• Sent. It has gone to the client.
• Expired. Sent, and its validity has passed without an answer.
• Accepted. The client said yes, and the engagement is open.
• Declined. The client said no to this version.
• Superseded. A later version replaced it.

Building a proposal

The builder has the proposal as you edit it on the left and the proposal as the client will read it on the right, redrawn as you type.

Lines. Each line is an offering, chosen from the list with what is left of it, or A line of my own for anything that is not on the book: a survey, a delivery charge. Give each line a description, a quantity, a unit price and, if you like, a line discount. Add a line adds another.

Discount on the proposal. A percentage off what is left after the line discounts. The subtotal, the discount and the total are worked out as you type. Where your workspace charges VAT, the proposal shows the total before VAT, the VAT and the total with it.

Terms.

• Engagement type: one-off sale, instalment sale, project or contract, retainer, subscription, booking or service agreement.
• How it is paid: Deposit and monthly (a deposit percentage and the number of payments in all), or In stages. Stages are named payments with a percentage each, adding up to 100%. The first stage is paid on acceptance; each later stage is invoiced when the delivery milestone it names is done, so name them after the milestones ("On installation" waits for Installation). An offering can carry its own stages, which a proposal for it starts with.
• Invoices due in, days.
• Valid until. Fourteen days from today to begin with.

Title, if it helps, Assumptions, Not included and Notes for the client are printed on the proposal.

Press Save when you have changed something. Delete draft throws a draft away.

Discounts over the limit

Your workspace sets a limit on discounts: 15% unless it has been changed. The limit is on the effective discount, which is everything taken off as a share of the full price, so a 10% line discount and a 10% proposal discount make 19%, not two 10%s.

A draft over the limit shows a bar saying what the discount is and what the limit is. Save it, then Ask for approval: the managers who may approve it are told, and it appears as an Approval in their My work. A manager approves with Approve the discount.

• Level 3 and above can approve a discount, but not on their own proposal.
• Level 4 can approve any, including their own.
• Changing the price of an approved draft clears the approval, because what was approved was the old price.

The limit itself is set by level 4, under Organisation › Rules & automation › Approvals & limits. The Proposals page says what it is.

Sending

Rople does not send a proposal to the client for you. Print or save as PDF opens it as a page to print or save, and you send it the way you send anything else. Then press Mark as sent to record that it went.

A proposal cannot be marked as sent until it has at least one line, a total above nothing, an approved discount if it needs one, and a validity date that has not passed. The builder lists whatever is missing.

Marking it sent does two things to the lead it was started from: a lead at New, Contacted or Qualified moves to Proposal, and the lead's value becomes the proposal's total, so the pipeline is worth what was actually offered.

A sent proposal within three days of its validity, or past it, is a Follow-up in its owner's My work.

New versions

A sent proposal is never edited. New version copies it as a draft with the next version number, and the version it replaces reads as Superseded. The strip at the top of the builder links every version, with where each stands.

Declined records the client's no, with a reason, against that version. The lead stays open, and you can raise a new version from the declined one.

An expired proposal cannot be accepted. Raise a new version to offer it again at today's terms.

Acceptance

Mark accepted on a sent proposal, inside its validity, opens a sheet that asks who is credited with the close, what was paid today and when the engagement opened, and lists What this will create:

• the client's account, found by email or phone, or opened;
• an engagement for the proposal's total, with every line on it, on the proposal's terms;
• every offering on it allocated, and delivery started the way each offering is delivered;
• a billing schedule with the deposit and payments, or the stages;
• an onboarding checklist for that kind of engagement;
• the lead moved to Won;
• every other open version of the proposal closed.

Confirm and open the engagement does all of it and takes you to the engagement. Accepting needs the same seat as opening an engagement: level 2 and above. The accepted proposal stays linked from the engagement's What was sold card.

Engagements with more than one line

An engagement opened from a proposal keeps every line it was sold on. Its What was sold card lists them, at the prices agreed, with the proposal it came from. Each offering's stock and availability counts every engagement line, not only the first.

Change orders

More work for a client who already has an engagement is a change order, not a new sale. Change order, on the engagement's What was sold card, starts a proposal against that engagement. It is built, approved and sent like any other proposal. When the client agrees, Accepted: add to the engagement adds its lines, its billing and its value to that engagement.

Who can do what

• Start, edit and send a proposal: anybody who can open Leads, on a proposal they own or wrote; level 3 and above on any.
• Approve a discount over the limit: level 3 and above, not on their own; level 4 on any.
• Accept a proposal: level 2 and above.
• Set the discount limit: level 4.

How it connects

• A proposal is started from a lead in Leads and pipeline, or from a client's account.
• Its lines come from Offerings.
• Accepting it opens an engagement in Clients and accounts, and the billing schedule that Billing and collections invoices from.
• Discount approvals and proposals about to lapse arrive in My work.

Common questions

Why can I not edit a proposal? Only a draft can be changed. Raise a new version of a sent, expired or declined one.

The client wants a different price after I sent it. What do I do? Raise a new version, change the price and send that. The old version is kept, superseded.

Why is Mark as sent greyed out? The builder lists what is missing underneath: usually a discount waiting for approval, or unsaved changes.