Automating Proposals and Contracts

Background

Whenever our client sent out a proposal, their customer would accept it via email. However, this occasionally resulted in lost deals as the email would get overlooked among the many emails our client received every day. Additionally, when a proposal was accepted, and the contract was sent for signature, it was printed, scanned and sent back as a PDF attachment (or sometimes multiple JPEG attachments) via email. Again, these would sometimes be overlooked. Once the contracts were returned, our client manually saved the files to a folder on their server and uploaded copies to their CRM.

The Challenge

Due to the high volume of potential deals, our client was having difficulties tracking and managing proposals and contract statuses.

Solution

Aether’s solution was quite simple. We set up Zoho Sign for our client and integrated it with Zoho CRM. Within Zoho Sign, we created templates for the proposal document as well as the contract. The templates were integrated with Zoho CRM so that information from within the Deal was automatically populated in the documents.

Automation Steps

Once this was done, the process was as follows: 

1. From within the Deal with Zoho CRM, our client simply added the proposal details with custom fields (you could also create a Quote using the Quotes module, but our client wanted to provide more details). Once these fields were populated, a button called “Send Proposal” became available. 
2. Once the “Send Proposal” button was clicked, all related data was sent to Zoho Sign to create a proposal. The proposal was then sent to the client’s customer as a link in an email. All the customer had to do was read the proposal and digitally sign to accept. 
3. When a proposal was accepted by getting signed via Zoho Sign, the automation updated the Deal to the next stage. It also attached a copy of the signed proposal to the Deal. Then it automatically created a contract within Zoho Sign and saved it as a draft for our client to review (you could skip this and have it automatically send instead). 
4. Once the contract was signed, the automation updated the stage of the Deal and sent out notifications to relevant parties, which included the details of the proposal, start dates, and key task assignments. 

Result

After we implemented this automation, our client never lost another Deal due to an overlooked email. He also saved hours from not having to do all the data management manually.