Quote Approval Workflows
Rep clicked Send on a quote fourteen points below margin floor. The customer had the PDF before the regional director saw the request.
The challenge
Rep clicked Send on a quote fourteen points below margin floor. The customer had the PDF before the regional director saw the request.
A conveyor and sortation integrator sells modular lines with drive packages, sensors, and installation services. Pricing policy says any quote more than ten points below floor needs regional director sign-off before the customer receives the document. Reps still export PDFs from CPQ, attach them in email, and mark the deal sent in CRM while approval waits in a manager inbox.
Finance learns about the breach from a forwarded thread on Monday. The customer already signed. Nobody can prove whether the director approved the discount or the rep assumed silence meant yes. Urgent deals skip the chain entirely. Low-risk quotes sit for days because the approver was travelling and delegation was not configured.
Discount management sets limits and margin floors. Quote management tracks pipeline status from draft to close. Approval-workflows pages cover configuration, catalog, and pricing-rule changes across CPQ. Quote approval workflows are different: they control whether a configured quote can leave sales before a named approver accepts margin, discount depth, or deal size.
Inquiry to config to price to approval to order needs a send gate on the quote itself, not a policy PDF reps can bypass with a manual PDF export.
How it works
How Mercura enforces quote approval before send
Sales ops define approval thresholds in Mercura: margin floor, discount depth, deal value, customer segment, or combinations on the quote object. When a rep or dealer clicks Send, the system evaluates the quote, blocks output if a rule triggers, and routes a task to the configured approver with full line context. Approvers approve or reject in CPQ with optional comments; the rep receives the decision on the same quote record. Multi-level chains escalate when a second threshold crosses director level. Delegation covers absence. Every decision is timestamped on the quote. Discount-management pages define the floors; this capability enforces them at send time.
What's included
What quote approval workflows cover
- Send blocked until required quote approvals complete
- Threshold triggers by margin, discount, deal value, or custom fields
- Multi-level chains with conditional escalation
- One-click approve or reject with comment from any device
- Rep notified when approval completes or is rejected
- Delegation when primary approver is unavailable
- Decision trail on the quote: who, when, and outcome
- Pending approvals visible to managers without opening email
The difference
Quote send before and after approval workflows
- Reps send PDFs before approvers respond
- Below-floor quotes reach customers without recorded sign-off
- Urgent deals bypass policy when inboxes are slow
- No proof of who approved margin exceptions after the fact
- Managers cannot see pending approvals across regions
- Send blocked until configured approvers complete review
- Off-policy quotes cannot reach the customer without approval
- Threshold routing sends only deals that need senior review
- Every approval decision stored on the quote record
- Managers see pending approvals and bottlenecks in CPQ
Real-world application
Example workflow: conveyor line below-floor quote
An integrator of overhead conveyors, sortation modules, and controls packages sold through regional reps. Reps frequently bundled installation labour to win warehouse automation projects. Below-floor quotes were approved in side email threads; several reached customers unsigned. After configuring margin and discount thresholds with send blocking in Mercura, a rep building a three-zone sortation line triggered director review when total discount crossed policy. Send stayed blocked until approval logged on the quote. Finance could open the same record to verify sign-off before order entry.
Business impact
Why quote approval workflows are the send gate for pricing policy
Quote approval workflows turn margin and discount policy into an enforced step before the customer sees the document. They complement discount limits, quote pipeline status, broad CPQ approval objects, and audit logs. Mercura does not replace commercial judgment on strategic accounts or legal review outside CPQ. Someone must define thresholds and keep approver lists current. If the pain is "policy exists but reps still send below-floor quotes", send-gated approval in CPQ aligns inquiry, configuration, price, approval, and order with what finance can defend after the deal closes.
See quotes held until the right approver signs off
Book a demo and walk through a below-floor quote blocked at Send until approval is recorded on the document.
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