Setting up Financial Routing in Salesforce CPQ for 15% Faster Approvals

Manual approval processes not only waste time and labor but can also incur significant additional expenses.

Let’s consider a scenario: You processed 500 transactions last month, and in 12 instances, manual intervention was required.

Initially, this might not seem like a big deal, but when you factor in the hourly wages of those involved, the costs quickly escalate. This raises an important question – Is it sustainable for your company to absorb these costs regularly?

Beyond financial implications, manual workflows also pose challenges in terms of meeting deadlines and maintaining transparency.

Furthermore, the manual hunt for invoices and the back-and-forth communication can be draining for employees, leading to decreased morale and potentially higher turnover rates.

To address these challenges, a dynamic approach to approval workflows is essential.

That’s when Salesforce CPQ emerged as a solution.

One of our customers, a cloud-based people development software provider and learning technology company, faced a similar situation with a manual financial approval process.

Here’s how we helped the customer automate financial approvals using Salesforce CPQ.

Background

The customer used Sales and Revenue Cloud to manage respective operations. However, since there was a requirement to manage financial approval the customer had purchased the CPQ package and used a standard approval earlier. The customer faced challenges like:

• Misrouted finance approvals
• Delayed decision-making
• Diluted accountability
• Increased risk of errors
• Inefficient resource utilization

To address these issues, we implemented a structured and sequential approval workflow in Salesforce CPQ, ensuring timely decisions, clear accountability, and optimized resource utilization.

The Solution

To address the challenge of misrouted finance approvals, we embarked on a comprehensive overhaul of the approval process. We implemented advanced approvals within the CPQ package. Leveraging advanced approval mechanisms, we crafted new finance approval chains, rules, and conditions tailored to our customer’s needs.

Here’s how we accomplished it:

11 Steps To Setting Up Approval Routing in Salesforce CPQ through Advanced Approvals

Here’s what our team at Grazitti did to implement Finance approval routing in Salesforce CPQ.

1. Initiated the process by creating a new Primary quote or accessing an existing one.
2. Accessed the Quote and clicked on the “Edit Lines” button.
3. Added Quote lines on the QLE page by selecting the “Add Products” button.
4. Ensured that the total Net Amount of all Quote lines on QLE exceeded $2 million.
5. Verified if the Total Net Amount on the Quote was greater than $2 million and if the Billing Frequency met the specified criteria in the Finance Approval rules.
6. Clicked on the “Submit for Approval” button.
7. Transitioned the Quote status to Pending Approval after submission.
8. Activated the Finance Approval rules, directing the approval process to Senior & Above, Manager & Above, and Director & Above.
9. Clicked on the “Preview Approval” button on the Quote to review the approval process.
10. Reviewed the approvals under Approval Step 1, Approval Step 2, and Approval Step 3 on the Quote Approval page.
11. Observed the generated approvals under the “Approvals” related list by the Finance Approval rules.

How this helped the customer:

• If the Net amount is less than $250K and the Billing Frequency is Milestone or Custom, along with other conditions specified in Finance approval, then the approval goes to Senior & Above.
• If the Net Amount is between $250K and $1M, and Contract Paper Type is Customer Paper, and Billing Frequency is Milestone or Custom, or Text T&C is True, or other specified conditions are met, then the approval goes to Senior & Above.
• If the Net Amount is between $1M and $2M, and Contract Paper Type is Customer Paper, and Billing Frequency is Milestone or Custom, or Free Text Term is True, or other specified conditions are met, then the approval goes to Senior & Above and Manager & Above.
• If the Net Amount is greater than $2M, and Contract Paper Type is Customer Paper, and Billing Frequency is Milestone or Custom, or Free Text Term is True, or other specified conditions are met, then the approval goes to Senior & Above, Manager & Above, and Director & Above.

Business Outcome

We implemented advanced approvals to replace the standard approval process, resulting in a notable enhancement in efficiency for the finance team. With this transition, we observed a remarkable improvement in approval speed, with requests now being approved up to 10–15% faster compared to the previous standard approval system. This enhancement has significantly streamlined our workflow, enabling quicker processing of requests and enhancing overall productivity within the finance department.

The Bottom Line

So, why stick with outdated manual approval processes when you can step into the future with advanced approvals in Salesforce CPQ? At Grazitti, we’ve seen the transformation firsthand. It’s all about ditching the inefficiencies, reducing errors, and boosting productivity. Ready to make your financial approval workflows a breeze? Let’s talk about how we can make it happen for you.

Ready to Automate Financial Approvals with Salesforce CPQ? Talk to Us!

Statistical References

^[i] Quixy
^[ii] Trevipay