A proposal travels back and forth as a PDF: change requests by email, new versions, approvals without a clear point in time. When a milestone was actually signed off ends up buried in an inbox. Yet that is the moment the invoice is triggered, so it should be unambiguous.
The proposal as data
Our approach separates content from presentation. The proposal consists of structured data: scope of work, milestones, dates, amounts. The presentation is a view on top of it. An AI can prepare the proposal from a conversation, and every change affects exactly one field, not an entire document. Why this works so well with AI is explained in our article on formats for agents.
A side effect: versions become comparable. Instead of laying two PDFs side by side, the system shows which milestone, date or amount has changed.
Does this sound familiar?
If it is unclear in your company when a project counts as signed off, let us show you in a first conversation what a clear sign-off process looks like.
Sign-off via link
The client receives a personal link with limited validity. There they see scope and milestones and confirm each milestone with one click. The confirmation is recorded with a timestamp, we are notified and the invoice is triggered. The client needs no account or password for this.
Payment processing deliberately stays in the existing accounting system. The app only does what is missing there: the unambiguous moment of approval.
Three takeaways
- Sign-off is the trigger. Recording it cleanly makes invoicing and cash flow predictable.
- Separate content and presentation. Structured data can be changed precisely by people and AI without breaking layouts.
- Only build what is missing. Payments, accounting and document storage stay in the systems that already handle them. More on this principle under Software & Apps.