Picture this: Your sales team has worked for weeks to close a major deal. The quote has been crafted, approved by finance, legal, and technical teams, and you're ready to send it to the customer. Then the customer asks for one small change—perhaps a different delivery date or a minor adjustment to the scope. Suddenly, you're back to square one, requiring every approver to review and approve the entire quote again.
Sound familiar? You're not alone.
The Hidden Cost of Full Re-Approvals
In our conversations with hundreds of CPQ users, we've discovered that quote modifications trigger an average of 3-5 additional approval cycles before deals close. Each cycle adds 2-4 days to the sales process, and more critically, creates approval fatigue among busy executives who find themselves repeatedly reviewing unchanged elements.
The math is sobering: A deal that could close in one week often takes three weeks due to redundant approval processes. In fast-moving markets, that delay can be the difference between winning and losing a deal.
Enter Smart Approvals
Today, we're excited to introduce Smart Approvals—a feature that fundamentally changes how quote approvals work in Subskribe CPQ.
Instead of the traditional "all-or-nothing" approach to approvals, Smart Approvals intelligently determines which aspects of a quote actually need fresh review when changes occur.
How It Works
Smart Approvals introduces a simple but powerful concept: approval workflows can be designated as "smart," meaning they preserve their approval status when quotes are modified—unless the changes actually affect the conditions that triggered the approval in the first place.
For example:
- If legal approved contract terms and only pricing changes, legal approval remains valid
- If finance approved payment terms and only billing cycle changes, finance approval stands
The system automatically compares the values of attributes (like discount percentages, total contract values, or payment terms) against their original approved values to make these intelligent decisions.
Real-World Impact
Consider a scenario where three approval workflows are triggered:
- Discount Approval (25% discount): Sales Manager → VP Sales
- Payment Terms (Net 60): Finance Head
- Custom Terms (Special delivery clause): Legal Representative
If the VP Sales initially rejects the discount approval but the quote is resubmitted with additional documentation (discount unchanged), here's what happens:
- Traditional CPQ: All three workflows restart from scratch
- Smart Approvals: Only the discount workflow restarts; finance and legal approvals are preserved since their conditions haven't changed
This seemingly small change can reduce approval cycles from days to hours.
Designed for Complex Business Realities
We've designed Smart Approvals to handle the complexities of real-world business processes:
Order-Level vs. Line-Level Conditions: The system intelligently handles both simple order-level approvals (like total discounts) and complex line-level approvals (like product mix changes). When line items change, the system takes a cautious approach and triggers fresh approvals to ensure proper oversight.
Flexible Configuration: Administrators can choose which workflows should be "smart" based on their organization's governance requirements.
Attribute-Based Intelligence: Rather than just checking if conditions are met, the system compares actual attribute values—if TCV was approved at $100,000 and is now $95,000, it recognizes this as a meaningful change requiring reapproval.
The Business Impact
Early adopters of Smart Approvals report:
- 60% reduction in approval cycles for modified quotes
- Significant decrease in approver fatigue and improved approval quality
- Faster deal velocity with reduced time from quote modification to closure
- Better sales team agility in responding to customer requests
Perhaps most importantly, Smart Approvals maintains the governance and oversight that approval processes are designed to provide—it simply eliminates the redundancy.
Getting Started
Smart Approvals is now available to all Subskribe CPQ customers. The feature integrates seamlessly with existing approval workflows and requires minimal configuration to get started.
For organizations looking to implement Smart Approvals:
- Assess Your Current Workflows: Review which approval processes would benefit most from smart preservation
- Start Conservative: Begin by enabling Smart Approvals for lower-risk workflows to build confidence
Looking Forward
Smart Approvals represents more than just a feature enhancement—it's a fundamental shift toward more intelligent, user-friendly business processes. As we continue to evolve the CPQ landscape, we're committed to reducing friction while maintaining the controls that businesses need.
In a world where speed-to-market increasingly determines success, Smart Approvals gives sales teams the agility they need while giving organizations the governance they require.
Ready to eliminate approval fatigue? Contact your Subskribe representative to learn more about Smart Approvals and how it can transform your quote-to-cash process.
About Subskribe: Subskribe provides modern CPQ solutions that help businesses streamline their quote-to-cash processes. Our platform combines powerful configuration capabilities with intelligent automation to help sales teams close deals faster while maintaining proper business controls.
