With the commissioning of a proposal, the contract part is complete, the operational implementation begins. ZEP hands the proposal off to the downstream Project Planning and Invoicing modules with two status transitions, provided they are activated.
Status „Commissioned" and „Confirmed"
As soon as the customer accepts the proposal, it is manually set to status Commissioned. Optionally, the status Confirmed follows with the sending of an automatic order confirmation, the corresponding email template is stored under Administration > Offer management > Mail Templates.
Both statuses are pure workflow markers, nothing automatic happens operationally. Only the next status transition activates the follow-up workflows.
Status „Transferred to Project"
With the action Transfer to project, ZEP automatically creates a new project from the proposal. The offer items are taken over as effort:
Item labels become task names in the new project
Planned days of the offer items are converted via the factor stored in the basic settings of the offer management (e.g., 8) into planned hours of the project
Customer and responsibility assignments are taken over to the project
Note: The takeover as planned hours requires the Project Planning module. Without this module, the project is created but without a planned hours entry.
Example: A proposal with three items, „Concept" 5 days, „Implementation" 12 days, „Test" 3 days, creates with factor 8 a new project with three tasks and 40, 96, and 24 planned hours respectively.
Status „Billed"
Note: The Billed status requires the Invoicing module.
When the proposal is billed via an invoice in the Invoicing module, ZEP automatically sets the proposal status to Billed. The offer items are used as a suggestion for the invoice items but can be adjusted, shortened, or extended per invoice.
How invoices are created from project times or directly from proposals is described in the article Feature Overview – Invoicing.
Status „Rejected" and reactivation
If the customer rejects the proposal, it is manually set to status Rejected. The proposal data is retained for reports and later reactivations, a rejected proposal can later be moved back to status In process and revised.
Actions per status
In each status, only certain actions are available, ZEP automatically hides the others. The following table provides an overview of the most important actions per status:
Current status | Available actions |
New | Edit · Delete · In Progress |
In process | Edit · Complete · Reject |
Done | Edit · In Review (with review obligation) · Create document · Reject |
In review | Reviewed · Back to In Progress · Reject |
Checked | Create document · Reject |
Document created | Send by email or letter · Create new version · Reject |
Offer sent as email or letter | Commission · Reject · Create printable PDF document |
Commissioned | Confirm (with active order confirmation) · Transfer to project · Bill · Reject |
Confirmed | Transfer to project · Bill |
transferred to project | Bill |
Billed | Rework (administrator only) |
Rejected | Reactivate (back to In Progress) |
Revise and reactivate
Even after a proposal is completed, subsequent changes are possible. ZEP provides two actions for this:
Revise: Administrators can jump from status Billed or any end status back to status In process. The proposal is then fully editable again, items, texts, and calculation can be adjusted.
Reactivate from „Rejected": A rejected proposal can be reactivated at any time, for example if the customer changes their mind. It jumps back to In process and runs through the workflow again.
Note: On reactivation, the proposal number is retained. If something changes in the content, it is worth activating the option Version number in proposal number in the basic settings beforehand, so that the new version is distinguishable from the old state.