3 Best Proposal Management Software to Share Business Proposal

Deltek Vision

Project-based solution Professional services firms Combines Project accounting Resource management Project management, Time/expense management Client management

Proposable

Empowers company to create track & sign all proposals, Helps creating & Automates sending trackable web-based proposals Closes deal with integrated eSignatures

RFPIO

Patented import process, AI-enabled recommendation engine Solution beyond collaboration & automation Enables organizations intelligently to respond to documents

Proposal Management Software

Proposal management software offers businesses to create and share proposals as well as managing  incoming requests for proposals. PMS streamlines the creativity process to help marketing and sales teams in tailoring and developing responses to businesses.

Proposal Management software also offers to manage important documents, like welcome letters, quotes, contracts, agreements, and marketing collateral.

Proposals which are decisive factors in any long-term sustainability of businesses, get well-structured and help gain huge business opportunities. It also helps in adding new clients to the business portfolio, defend the businesses against management criticisms. It offers to persuade the management to act on current issues.

Making a proposal is a daunting task that needs you to collect information from multiple departments, creating and curating images, sending emails to sellers, suppliers, IT technocrats and getting the availability of assets or supplies before committing anything in the proposal. It needs a lot of time, patience, and effort to respond to every Request for Proposal. You may be curating the proposal for every client who wants a variation or too and customized services. It manually helps in creating all timelines, curating information, formatting documents, attaching quotes, may take valuable time, and certainly, cannot bill the prospects for the proposal making efforts.

All proposal managers feel the requirement for an efficient process to create and manage proposals in an easier, simpler, and speedier way. Technology has a solution to streamline the proposal management process. With the assistance of proposal management software, businesses can help in creating, delivering, and managing proposals efficiently. 

What is a Proposal Management Software?

Proposal management software is an application software which helps in managing the whole proposal process starting from creating to signing the proposal for the final deal. It offers to enable users to make proposals in minutes, and with the integration of digital signature tools, it also allows secure signing to close the deal. Proposal management software has an extensive pool of mind blowing detailed proposal templates,  drag-and-drop editor, helping it easy to create stunning proposals embedded with interactive video content, maps, and images. With a Proposal management system, user can:

  • Create client questionnaires
  • Build an RFP response pool 
  • Update and customize Proposal
  • Set reminders for proposal follow-ups
  • Edit proposal in real-time while presenting it to client

It help in integrating with existing systems, document management tools, CRM modules, etc. offering insights and additional features for the proposals. It ensures an error-free proposal which doesn’t let you down. Its collaboration space allows employees from all departments to share and edit files, thereby allowing companies to deploy the essential expertise of all the departments before submitting the proposal.

Critical to have a successful business proposal

Approved proposals offers the license to act. Grants are awarded based on the value in the submitted proposal Not only businesses, even in research. While business proposals are written keeping the prospective client at the center, they help the seller by breaking the complex sale process into manageable tasks. The proposals are crafted to favor the own services and products in the light of buyer’s requirements.

  • Proposals help businesses in visualizing the plan and projecting realistically
  • Proposals can source investments for startups and small businesses
  • Proposals offer to help in monitoring  work with clearly defined timelines
  • Signed and approved proposals are legally valid and legally bind the parties to fulfill the commitments.
  • Clearly written proposals stops any future misunderstanding between the parties
  • Proposals offer a checklist of the standard processes that makes workflow easy

While all businesses have the own specific requirements, formats, guidelines, and procedure of making proposals, the below sample offers a sample table of content to give an idea about what content is included in the proposals.

Advantages of Proposal Management Software

Ready-to-use templates: Creating proposals from scratch is tedious and time-consuming. Proposal management software provides a number of ready-to-use templates for proposal needs. Users can edit sections of their chosen template creating a final proposal. They can also reuse content from previously created proposals.

Search function: Proposal management solutions offering centralized repositories for storing proposals and related documents. These repositories are equipped with search capabilities that let users easily locate proposals. They help in facilitating automatic tagging and categorization of documents, saving time that would have otherwise been spent on manual document handling.

Security : Proposals helps in creating using these solutions are more secure than paper-based proposals. Users help in setting passwords and encrypting digital files to ensure information remains confidential and is only accessing by authorized personnel.

Characteristics of Proposal Management Software

Content library: Storing and organizing proposals in a centralized repository.

Document management: Creating, storing, sharing, and categorizing proposals and related documents.

Templates: Creating proposals using editable templates that can be reused.

Contact management: Creating and storing business contacts in a centralized location in a categorized order.

Electronic signature: Using a legally binding digital signatures for the documents.

Price of Proposal Management Software

Most products in the market are priced on a per user, per month basis and can be divided into three pricing tiers based on their starting price. A premium product is priced higher and has additional features like third-party integrations and advanced workflow approval.

Considerations while Buying Proposal Management Software

Multidepartment needs: Proposal creation is a collaboration among teams—writers, editors, marketing, sales, quality assurance, etc. Every team has a different function and accordingly, different needs. Therefore, it’s recommended that consider the requirements of all involved departments before making a purchase. Your preferred software should be capable of catering to all teams. Failure to do so can result in versioning issues and significant project delays. 

Integrations: For creating proposals, information is sourced from other business applications, like CRM, document management, and e-signature. Thus, it’s requirement that  choose a solution that integrates well with existing business applications. An integrated tool will sync business data across applications, saving you from the hassle of repeated data entry.

Industry-specific templates: Design needs of proposals vary significantly based on industry. Although most proposal management solutions provide standardized templates for various industries, it’s always beneficial to check that preferred software has templates that are specific to the industry.

Proposal Management Software Trends

Rise in cloud-based proposal management solutions: Businesses worldwide are adopting cloud-based proposal management software to decrease the delivery costs. Cloud solutions remove the requirement for extended delivery platforms, like email and file-sharing systems, as they allow businesses to directly share proposals and related documents via cloud links. It helps in facilitating better collaboration and faster delivery.