Estimation & Proposals

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After this lesson you'll be able to see what's due this week, track a proposal through its stages, and find the estimate attached to any deal.

Pricing is where a Technology deal becomes real. Up to this point the deal is a conversation; after this point it is a number the client can sign. The estimation flow exists so that pricing work is never a private spreadsheet on someone's laptop — it lives on the deal, moves through visible stages, and every file it produces lands where the whole team can find it. This lesson covers both sides: the CRM view where the queue lives, and the Proposal Engine where the numbers get built.

What's due this week

Your home base for proposal work is the Estimation & Proposals view. It shows the deals that need attention, sorted by proposal due date, with the columns that matter — proposal stage, priority, pricing status, who is estimating, and when the bid is due.

A deal enters this queue when it is submitted to the estimations team — the record carries who the assigned estimator is, when it was submitted, and even the bid due time when a deadline is same-day sharp ("5pm CT" matters when the upload portal closes at 5:01). If your deal needs pricing and it is not in this view, it has not actually been queued — no one is working on it, however urgent it feels.

Proposal stages

Each deal moves through proposal stages — RFP, Sales Lead, BAFO, LOI, Existing Client Budget — and the view groups and triages by them. Keep the Proposal Stage field current so the view stays accurate and nothing slips.

• Click it: open the opportunity → set Proposal Stage. When pricing is finished, the deal shows Pricing Complete — usually set automatically (see below).

Where the pricing actually happens

The numbers get built in the Proposal Engine. The working loop looks like this:

1. Start an estimate from the deal — line items for the displays, hardware, install, spares, the lot.
2. Iterate. Every save creates a revision, so you can compare versions and see exactly what changed between rounds. Alternates (Alt 1 / Alt 2 / Alt 3) can be priced side by side when the client wants options.
3. Export — Excel cost sheet, one-pager, proposal PDF, or SOW.

Here is the part that keeps everything connected: every export attaches itself to the CRM opportunity automatically — that is Universal CRM Push. Generating the one-pager also marks the deal Pricing Complete with the date, and sending the proposal PDF moves the bid status to Bid Submitted. When the pricing document must reproduce a source workbook exactly, line for line, that is Mirror Mode — exact-fidelity output, no recalculated surprises.

For a fast ballpark before full pricing starts, ask Scout — the assistant has a quick-estimate skill that returns a rough figure in chat. It is a sanity check, not a bid: real proposals still go through the Proposal Engine.

Finding the estimate or proposal

Each opportunity gathers its related work on its own page — so the estimate, documents, and links live with the deal, not in a separate folder or an email thread.

1. Open the opportunity.
2. Scroll its page to the related sections (estimates, documents, links).
3. Open what you need right there — every generated file also leaves a timeline note saying who generated what and when.

What good looks like

The bar: every deal you own with pricing in flight shows the correct proposal stage and due date in Estimation & Proposals, has its estimate attached to the record, and flips to Pricing Complete the moment the one-pager exists. A teammate should be able to pick up your deal cold and find every number and document from the opportunity page alone.

Now you try →

Open the Estimation & Proposals view, pick a deal with an upcoming due date, and confirm its proposal stage is current and its estimate is attached.

👉 Open the CRM

Related lessons:

• Proposals & Due Dates — the deadline discipline that ranks this queue.
• Your Pipeline — the wider views around the estimation queue.
• Managing Your Deals — what happens to the deal once pricing goes out.