Increase Your Business Efficiency with a Proposal Automation Solution: An Essential Guide
Crafting and sending a timely business proposal is vital for standing out and winning clients. Small businesses often struggle here due to manual, slow, and cumbersome proposal processes.
Do you still create your proposals in word processors and send them to clients via email? If you do, you may need to build a quicker and more streamlined proposal process that will help you win more clients. The smartest way to do that is to take advantage of the evolving technology and get a proposal automation solution for your business.
What Is a Proposal Automation Solution?
A proposal automation solution is a software application that helps businesses create and deliver proposals more efficiently. The application automates repetitive tasks and assists in streamlining the entire proposal process.
Cone Proposal-to-Payment takes this one step further by taking care of the invoicing, billing, and payment collection as well. You can try the all-in-one platform for free to create impressive proposals, get them signed, complete the invoicing process, and receive the payment.
How Does a Proposal Automation Software Work?
Proposal automation solutions automate repetitive tasks so that business owners and employees can focus on other important functions. These tools perform tasks such as
- Writing customized, attractive, and engaging proposals for clients
- Correcting grammatical and other mistakes in proposals
- Pulling the content from the library to auto-populate the proposal
- Enabling the client to access, review, and sign the proposal easily
- Helping the business track the activities related to proposals in real time
- Send reminders to follow up on unsigned proposals
- Bonus: Should be able to receive the client payment information and be able to charge for the service on time i.e. invoicing and collections
Key Features of Proposal Automation Solutions That Can Help Your Business
Let's understand what unique features a proposal automation software has and how they can help you improve your proposal process.
Proposal Creation
The proposal creation feature helps you create professional and persuasive proposals faster. Once you enter the client details, signing method, key dates, and service details into the tool, it immediately creates a personalized proposal for your client. You can customize all aspects of the proposal and can also assign it to specific staff members working on that project.
Proposal Templates
Proposal automation solutions offer pre-designed templates for proposal emails and engagement letters to save you time and effort. You can edit these templates to tailor them for different clients and projects.
Cone Proposal-to-Payment has an extensive library of beautifully designed proposal templates that you can choose from. All these templates are customizable and you can also create a completely new design from scratch.
Track Clients and Proposals
Many proposal automation solutions allow their users to track the status of the proposals in real-time. With Cone Proposal-to-Payment, you can view and track all proposals sent by you in a single window. You can also monitor different proposals sent to the same client under the 'Clients' tab. The invoiced revenue, average monthly revenue, payments summary, and the annual projections of the client are also displayed in the same window.
E-Sign
Tools like Cone Proposal-to-Payment also enable you to sign documents electronically. You can securely get documents signed by multiple signatories without switching tools. Clients can access, review, and sign the documents from any device due to the tool's excellent optimization.
Top 3 Benefits of Proposal Automation Solutions
Let's look at the major benefits of proposal automation solutions for businesses.
1. Streamlined Proposal Process
Using a proposal automation solution, you can set up a highly automated standardized process for writing and sending proposals. Having a streamlined process reduces the risk of errors in proposals, delays in sending the proposals, and inaccurate or inconsistent responses to clients.
2. Increased Efficiency
Proposal automation tools save a significant amount of time by automating repetitive and mundane processes. Business owners and employees can focus on strategic, creative, and high-value projects in the time saved up by automation. This improves the efficiency of the team.
3. Convenience
Proposal automation solutions make it easier to write personalized proposals, send them to clients, track their progress, and take care of follow-ups. It saves time and effort for the business owner and the staff by providing customizable templates, automatic invoicing solutions, and business insights on a single platform.
The Best Proposal Automation Software Options for Your Business
As the demand for proposal automation solutions has increased, many options have been launched in the market. Review the features of each option and choose the one that satisfies most of your needs at an affordable price. Below are a few good proposal automation software available in the market.
- Cone Proposal-to-Payment: This cloud-based platform helps you create and send proposals swiftly. It also handles e-signatures, auto-generates invoices for signed proposals, and offers a range of payment options. Best of all, it's free.
- Pandadoc: This platform aids in crafting custom proposals and offers additional features like e-signing and document analytics. Pricing starts at $19 per month and varies based on your business needs.
- Proposify: Proposify is an easy-to-use tool that allows the creation of professional and personalized proposals with ease. It also has other features like e-signing, business insights, and syncing with CRMs. The pricing for the software starts from $49 per month.
Final Thoughts
Write engaging and error-free proposals in less time by getting a proposal automation solution for your business. It will save your team's time, boost efficiency, and help you win more clients.
Choose Cone's Proposal-to-Payment solution to create winning proposals, send them promptly, and get them signed electronically. We have designed an all-in-one platform that takes care of generating invoices for signed proposals and collecting the payments as well. The best part is that the Proposal-to-Payment platform is completely free. So what are you waiting for? Sign up for Cone today!