Building and Managing Proposal Templates

Proposal Templates are one of the most time saving features in PASconcept. Through the use of Proposal Templates, users can generate confidence building proposals in minutes.

In PASconcept proposals are composed of a combination of the following items:

• Basic Information
• Phases (Optional)
• Tasks
• Payment Schedule, and
• Terms and Conditions

When building a Proposal Template you are effectively preselecting a unique combination of the above. These templates can be used to both pre-populate fields in the Proposal Wizard and to facilitate in the creation of Proposals and Jobs through the “Quick Add” Feature.

Proposal Templates List

Like many other elements in PASconcept, you can both view your existing Proposal Templates and generate new Proposal Templates from your Proposal Templates List.

To access your Proposal Templates List, simply use the Settings Cog  to access the Settings Menu, then navigate to Proposals > Templates.

This list can provide you with a wealth of information. This information can be placed into two categories; Statistical Information and Content.

Statistical Information

Statistical information can show you cross platform information related to a specific Proposal Template. Here you can view how many Proposals have been generated using this Proposal Template (Proposals) and how many Jobs have been generated with this Proposal Template.

Content information

Outside of Statistical information, you can also get a birds eye view of what the Proposal Template is composed. This can include fields such as:

• Project Type
• Department
• Terms and Conditions, and
• Payment Schedule

How to Build a Proposal Template

There are two ways of generating Proposal Templates for future use. The first to build the template from scratch using our Proposal Template Builder. The second is to generate a Proposal Templates from one of your already existing Proposals. Both of these methods will be detailed below.

From Scratch

Prior to building a Proposal Template, you should ensure that you have already populated the following Catalogs in your instance of PASconcept:

• Job Types
• Departments
• Employee List
• Phases (optional)
• Tasks
• Payment Terms
• Terms and Conditions

If you need help on populating the above items, please take a moment to review the existing documentation HERE.

Once you have these catalogs defined and populated, building a Proposal Template is a breeze. Simply Navigate to your Proposal Template List and click on the  button.

Once selected, this will take you to the Proposal Template Wizard. This is essentially an abridged version of the Proposal Wizard. Users who are familiar with the Proposal Wizard will be able to recognize a number of similar fields, and vice versa.

Basic Info

Much like the first step of the Proposal Wizard, here you are both configuring Settings for your Proposal Template and Fields of your Proposal.

Settings

The following fields are settings items that either relate to the Proposal or the Proposal Template:

• Name – This is the Name of the Proposal Template
• Message Template* – This is the email message that will be pre-selected once you are ready to send your proposal
• Proposal Expires in* – This is the number of months the proposal will be active for once it has been sent to the client

*These fields will simply pre-populate this information, but can still be changes/modified from proposal to proposal.

Fields

The information selected for the following fields will be populated onto a Proposal for which this Proposal Template is selected. That is to say that if , for example, “Company Signature” was selected in the “Signed by” field, once this Proposal Template is selected, “Company Signature” will be selected for the field “Signed by” on the subsequent proposal. Such Fields are include the following:

• Job Type
• Department
• Reviewed By
• Signed By
• Opening Text
• Closing Text

Keep in mind, these fields can still be modified or edited at the Proposal level.

Fees and Scope

In this step users are able to define the default Tasks and Phases ( with their values and their order) as they are to be populated when this Proposal Template is selected. Again those familiar with the Fees and Scope section of the Proposal Wizard will find a significant degree of similarity between this Fee and Scope step and the one found in the Proposal Wizard.

One key difference between this step and the one found in the Proposal Wizard is that here you can add multiple Fees and/or entire Phases with one click.

Adding Tasks

To add a Fee to this Proposal Template open the Related Task ID Dropdown select box (e.g. ). One open, you can select any number of Task Items to add to this Proposal Template, simply click on the adjacent Check box to select them and then click on the Add Task button .

Once your selected Tasks have populated into the table, you can now edit their values. To Edit the Task values (such as Name, Description, Quantity, Hours, Rate and Bill Type) simply Click on the Task Name.

You can also change the Task Position/Order by clicking on the up/down arrows .

Adding a Phase

As with the Proposal Wizard, Phases refer to a grouping of Tasks. Phases are also optional and not necessary for a successful proposal template. However, if you choose to add a collection of Tasks grouped into a Phase, simply select the phase from the Phase Drop Down  prior to selecting the associated Tasks.

Payments & Terms and Conditions

The final two step allows you to adjust and define Payment options and Terms and Conditions associated to the Proposal Template. Such options include the following: Retainer, Lump Sum, Hide Fee Summary, Payment Schedule Type and Payment Schedule Template, and the selected Terms and Conditions. For more information on these please visit the Proposal Guide, HERE.

The options determined here will be automatically defined by default then the Proposal Template is defined.

Saving/Updating your Proposal Template

On any step in the Proposal Template Wizard you can click on the green update button . This will save your Proposal Template in its current state and allow the Proposal Template to be selectable within the Proposal Wizard.

Creating a Proposal Template from an Existing Proposal

To create a Proposal Template from and existing proposal, simply click on the Action Button associated to the proposal on the Proposal List. Then Select the “Save Proposal as Proposal Template” option. This will navigate you to a form where you can define the Proposal Template name.

Once renamed, click on the Save and Back button to create your new Proposal Template.