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The Quote Lifecycle: from Draft to Closed

The four stages every quote moves through — Draft, customer approval, e-signing, closed.

Audience: salespeople moving a quote forward from initial draft to a signed contract. Scope: the four stages of the quote lifecycle, what happens at each, and how to move between them. See also: Creating a Quote, Sharing a Quote: Preview, Export, and E-Sign, Contracts in CPQ Client.

1. The four stages

Every quote in the CPQ Client moves through the same four-stage lifecycle. The current stage is shown in the right-hand timeline on the quote view:

  1. Draft

  2. Get customer approval

  3. Send to eSign

  4. Mark as closed

The stage you’re in determines what actions are available and what the customer sees.

2. Stage 1 — Draft

This is where every quote starts and where you spend the most time. You’re still building the quote.

What you can do:

  • Add and remove products across forms

  • Adjust quantities, amounts, discounts (within the limits your admin has set)

  • Edit customer details, contract terms, quote expiry, and notes

  • Preview the quote document at any time to see what it’ll look like to the customer

  • Save and come back later — drafts auto-save and appear under the Drafts tab on the Quotes page

What the customer sees: nothing. A Draft quote is private to you and your team.

Moving forward: when the quote is complete enough to share, move to Get customer approval (see Stage 2).

3. Stage 2 — Get customer approval

You’ve finished the draft and you’re ready to share it with the customer for review and sign-off.

Typical actions in this stage:

  • Preview the quote document one more time to sanity-check what the customer will see — see Sharing a Quote for what’s in the rendered document

  • Export the quote as PDF (the most common choice for customer review), or Word / Excel / PowerPoint if the customer prefers

  • Send the exported file to the customer through your normal channel (email, CRM, etc.)

  • Address feedback from the customer by going back to Draft, editing, and re-sharing

What the customer sees: whatever document you’ve sent them. They can read it but not interact with the quote inside Good Sign — they’re working from the exported file.

Moving forward: once the customer has agreed verbally or in writing, move to Send to eSign to formalise the agreement (see Stage 3). Or, if your team handles signatures outside Good Sign, you can move directly to Mark as closed.

4. Stage 3 — Send to eSign

The customer has agreed in principle and is ready to sign. The quote is sent through your configured e-signing provider (OneFlow or Visma Sign, depending on what your admin has set up).

What happens when you click Send to eSign:

  • The quote document (with the configured template) is packaged for the e-signing provider

  • The provider takes over the customer-facing signing experience (email invitations, signature placement, audit trail)

  • The lifecycle timeline moves to Send to eSign and stays there until the customer signs (or declines)

For the full step-by-step on what the signing experience looks like and how to track it, see Sharing a Quote: Preview, Export, and E-Sign.

What the customer sees: an email from the e-signing provider with a link to review and sign the document. They sign in their browser; nothing is installed.

Moving forward: the lifecycle moves to Mark as closed once the customer signs (the e-signing provider confirms the signed status back to Good Sign).

5. Stage 4 — Mark as closed

The quote is done. It’s either signed and active, or — less commonly — the customer declined and you’re recording that outcome.

What happens when a quote is marked as closed (signed):

  • The quote becomes a completed record in CPQ Client (read-only)

  • If your environment is configured for it (admin setting in CPQ Settings → Contracts), a contract is automatically created in Good Sign Billing with the products and prices from the approved quote, at the default status your admin set (typically Draft) so the billing team can review before activating

  • A corresponding organisation may also be auto-created in Billing if it didn’t exist before, under the root your admin specified

  • The contract then becomes the billing team’s responsibility — invoicing, renewals, modifications all happen on the Billing side from this point

For what to do with the resulting contract in CPQ Client, see Contracts in CPQ Client.

What the customer sees: the signed document (kept by the e-signing provider) and, soon after, the first invoice from Good Sign Billing.

6. Reading the timeline

The right-hand timeline on the quote view always shows you where the quote currently sits:

  • The current stage is highlighted; earlier stages are marked complete; later stages are pending

  • The timeline updates automatically as the quote moves forward

You can preview, export, or send to eSign from the same buttons across the top of the view (Preview / Send to eSign / Export). Which buttons are active or grey depends on the current stage and on whether the quote is ready (for example, customer details must be filled before the quote can be sent for signature).

7. Tips for moving quotes through quickly

Don’t wait for perfection in Draft. A clean Draft is better than a perfect one stuck in your queue. Move it forward and iterate based on customer feedback.

Preview before sharing. A 30-second Preview catches more “oops” moments than an hour of careful editing.

Use Send to eSign when the customer is ready. The provider’s signing flow is usually faster than back-and-forth via email and gives you a clean audit trail. Confirm with your admin whether your environment uses OneFlow or Visma Sign.

Don’t skip Mark as closed. Leaving signed quotes in Send to eSign status means the auto-created contract in Billing never lands. Close the loop.