The reviewer reconstructs the opportunity first
Before a partner can judge scope or pricing, they re-read the transcript, hunt for the prior proposal and ask what the client actually agreed. The review starts long before the document is open.
Proposal review and approval
Review and approve the exact consulting proposal version.
Solon packages the opportunity context, scope, assumptions, sources and changes with every review request, and records approval against one specific version rather than a moving document.
How proposal review usually works.
Review is rarely a workflow. It is a document, a thread and a partner trying to remember the client.
- 01A draft is attached to an email or dropped in a shared drive
- 02The partner opens it without the client conversation behind it
- 03Comments land in the document, the thread and a side conversation
- 04Someone applies the feedback and creates a new file version
- 05Approval is a reply that says “fine to send”
“The latest document” is not an approval state.
When approval is attached to a file rather than a version, a firm cannot answer basic questions after the fact.
Nobody can name what was approved
If the proposal changed after sign-off, the firm cannot say whether the client received the reviewed version or a later one. The approval and the artifact have drifted apart.
Material changes reset nothing
Scope grows, the price moves, a workstream appears. The document keeps the same name and the earlier approval quietly continues to look valid.
Feedback is scattered across tools
Comments live in the document, the decision lives in email, and the reasoning lives in someone's memory. None of it reaches the next proposal.
Proposal Version 4
Changes pending review- Requested by
- Engagement Owner
- Reviewer
- Managing Partner
- Due
- Friday
What changed
- Client requested a narrower pilot
- Timeline changed from 12 to 10 weeks
- Price increased by €12,500
- New data workstream added
ApproveRequest changesReject
Version 3Approved
- Approach
- Original approach
- Price
- €145,000
- Workstreams
- Three workstreams
Version 4Current
- Approach
- Revised implementation phase
- Price
- €157,500
- Workstreams
- Four workstreams
Approval required
Approval for Version 3 became outdated after a material scope and pricing change.
Why the usual approval tools do not fit consulting review.
Internal partner review is a judgement step, not a signature step. Most tools solve a different problem.
- Client e-signature
- Signature tools record that a client accepted a final document. They say nothing about whether the firm reviewed the scope, pricing and assumptions before it was sent.
- Generic document approval
- Workflow tools approve a file. A consulting reviewer needs the opportunity behind the file: objectives, assumptions, sources and what changed since last time.
- Informal email confirmation
- “Looks good to me” is fast and leaves no record of which version it applied to, or what the reviewer was actually looking at.
- Comments in the document
- Comments capture line edits well. They do not capture an approval decision, its scope, or the state the artifact was in when it was made.
How review and approval work in Solon.
- 01
Package the review request
The reviewer receives the proposal with the client objectives, scope, assumptions, open questions and the sources behind them — not a bare attachment.
- 02
Show what changed
Each request states what moved since the previous version: approach, price, workstreams, timeline. The reviewer reads the delta, not the whole document again.
- 03
Decide against one version
Approve, request changes or reject. The decision attaches to that exact version, with the reviewer and the reasoning recorded alongside it.
- 04
Flag approvals that went stale
When a material change lands after approval, Solon marks the approval as outdated rather than letting an old sign-off cover new scope.
What makes the decision reliable.
Context travels with the request
Objectives, decisions, assumptions and open questions are attached to the review, so the partner is not rebuilding the opportunity from memory.
Latest and approved are different states
Solon tracks the current version and the approved version separately, and shows when they have diverged.
Source traceability
Claims in the proposal point back to the transcript, prior work or firm rule they came from, so a reviewer can check rather than trust.
Version history and comparison
Compare any two versions side by side and see the fields that actually changed, including commercial ones.
Explicit approval state
Every version carries a state — draft, in review, approved, approval required — instead of an implied one.
Audit history
Who requested, who decided, what they saw and when. Available after the engagement, not only during it.
When this matters most.
- Partners review most proposals before they reach a client
- Proposals change materially between draft and send
- More than one person edits the same proposal
- The firm has been unable to say which version a client received
- Pricing or scope decisions need to be defensible later
- Review currently happens over email and document comments
Questions about proposal review and approval
- What is a proposal approval workflow for a consulting firm?
- It is the internal process that takes a drafted proposal to an explicitly approved version: who reviews it, what context they see, what they can decide, and which exact version their decision applies to. It is distinct from a client accepting or signing the final document.
- How is this different from client e-signature?
- E-signature records the client's acceptance of a finished document. This workflow happens earlier and inside the firm: it is how a partner satisfies themselves that the scope, assumptions and pricing are right before anything is sent.
- What is proposal version control in consulting?
- Keeping every version of the proposal as a distinct, retrievable state — so the firm can compare versions, see what changed, and attach an approval to one of them rather than to a filename.
- Why is the latest version not the approved version?
- Because proposals keep moving after review. If someone changes the price or adds a workstream after a partner approved it, the newest document has never actually been approved. Solon keeps those two states separate and flags when a change has invalidated an earlier approval.
- Does Solon approve proposals automatically?
- No. Solon prepares the review, shows what changed and records the outcome. The decision belongs to the authorised reviewer, and client-facing actions require explicit approval.
- Can more than one reviewer be involved?
- The workflow is designed around named reviewers and an explicit decision per version. Configuration of specific approval policies is part of what we set up with beta firms.