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Sourced Sales Proposal Template

Every sentence typed by what it actually is, every assumption priced against the fee, and every expiry date in the document set separately.

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What you get

Pack of 9 files: 5 documents, 4 spreadsheets

Sourced Sales Proposal Template
  • Claim StandardDocument
  • ProposalDocument
  • Executive SummaryDocument
  • Scope DefinitionDocument
  • Assumptions and ExclusionsDocument
  • Claim ProvenanceSpreadsheet
  • Assumption RegisterSpreadsheet
  • Pricing BuildSpreadsheet
  • Validity RegisterSpreadsheet
RiverSourced Sales Proposal Template

Validity Register · Marlowe Grid to Denholme Retail Group · cover dated 12 June 2026

The cover says thirty days. Five things inside are expiring on five different dates.

What expiresWhyDateDaysWho re-checks
Licence at £50 per site per monthPrice book v7 superseded at quarter end30 Sep110Deal desk
The 12% multi-year discountThe approval that authorised it is time limited15 Aug64VP Sales
The £38,000 fixed implementation feeThe Q4 delivery slot held for this deal is released31 Jul49Delivery lead
The 240 site count the price rests onTheir supplier contract renews and the estate moves31 Aug80Their energy manager
The £12,000 historical data loadThird-party data broker quote DB-8841 expires4 Jul22Partner manager
The validity printed on the coverWritten as a round thirty days from the proposal date12 Jul30Deal desk

The cover promises the price for eight days longer than the quote one of its lines was built from. Set the cover to 4 July, say why in the document, and re-quote one line if you want longer.

Page one for this query is one document repeated. Cover, introduction, about us, why choose us, services, pricing plans, next steps, published as the structure by the vendor who analysed a million of them. The longer Word versions add a table of contents carrying 2.3 Assumptions, 2.5 Project Scope and 6.1 Cost Breakdown as named sections. So scope, assumptions, exclusions and a cost breakdown are all standard equipment. What none of them notices is that a proposal is four documents wearing one cover.

A sentence in it is one of four things. Something the buyer said, which needs a date and a speaker. Something you are committing to, which lands in the order form and belongs to whoever delivers it in month four. Something you are asserting about yourself, which is regulated advertising the moment it is addressed to a business. Or something that traces to nothing, which is most of the Why Choose Us page and gets cut.

Then the assumptions get priced, because a fixed fee places maximum risk on the supplier and three unconfirmed sentences carrying £19,700 against a £38,000 fee is a contract-type question rather than a drafting one. And the cover date gets set from the earliest of five clocks rather than a round thirty days, which is how a price stays valid eight days longer than the quote it was built from. The business case behind the number and the redline that comes back are their own jobs.

What the draft actually contains, once every sentence is typed

One fictional deal throughout: Marlowe Grid selling energy monitoring across 240 stores. Every figure ties to the others.

Sourced Sales Proposal Template
RiverClaim Provenance

Claim Provenance

Every substantive statement in the draft, typed before the document goes out.

SectionStatementTypeSource or evidenceOwnerVerdict
1. Where you are todayStore managers pull consumption from three supplier portalsbuyer-sourcedD. Farrer, call 8 MayAccount execkeep
1. Where you are todayThis has to be live before the November tariff changebuyer-sourcedK. Ashby, call 21 MayAccount execdrive the plan from it
3. What we will doReporting within 15 minutes of half-hourly data arrivingcommitment95th percentile is 9 minVP Engineeringcarry into service levels
3. What we will doLive across all 240 sites within 12 weeks of signaturecommitmentConditional on A-02, A-03Delivery leadstate the condition on the page
3. What we will doUnlimited supportcommitmentContradicts our own master agreementLegalstruck
4. About usCertified to our published security standardassertionCertificate current to 17 OctSecurityre-check at signature
4. About usTypical customers see a 9% reduction in consumptionassertionNo study, no dataset, no nameable customerMarketingstruck
4. About usTrusted by leading retailers across EuropeunsourcedNames nobody, asserts nothing testablenonecut
5. CommercialsPrice held for 30 days from the date of this proposalcommitmentContradicts clock V-04, which dies 4 JulDeal deskrestated to 4 July

Three buyer-sourced statements, six commitments all now owned, and a whole section that traced to nothing. Section 4 went from four claims to one. The two struck commitments were both contradictions of documents this company had already published itself.

RiverAssumption Register

Assumption Register

Each assumption is a factual claim about their environment that the price is built on.

IDAssumptionConfirmed byDateIf falseWeeksTreatment
A-01All 240 sites already have half-hourly meteringTheir energy manager29 May£00absorbed
A-02Incumbent releases 24 months of data, machine-readable, in 30 daysnobodyunconfirmed£9,0006re-priced if false
A-03One named contact, two days a week, for the durationTheir programme manager29 May£14,0004re-priced if false
A-04No site visits; all data arrives on the supplier feedUs, against their meter list20 May£81,6003excluded
A-05Store-level tariff data supplied in the agreed templatenobodyunconfirmed£4,2002re-priced if false
A-06No finance system integration in year oneTheir IT director3 Junquoted separately8excluded
A-07Tariff structures hold during the implementation windownobodyunconfirmed£6,5003absorbed

Three unconfirmed assumptions carry £19,700 against a £38,000 fixed implementation fee. That is 52% of the fee sitting on sentences nobody has checked, which makes it a question about the contract type rather than about the drafting. The largest single exposure, £81,600 of site visits, is the one the seller verified themselves instead of asking, which is exactly why it got checked.

RiverPricing Build

Pricing Build

Every figure in the proposal reconstructs from this. The document shows the build, not the total.

LineBasisQtyUnitListAdjustmentApprovalLapsesNet
Platform licencePer site per month, 12 months240£50£144,000-£17,280A-226115 Aug£126,720
ImplementationFixed fee against the scope in section 31£38,000£38,000nonen/an/a£38,000
Historical data load24 months across the estate, passed through at cost240£50£12,000noneDB-88414 Jul£12,000
Year oneList less approved adjustments£194,000-£17,280£176,720

The 12% discount carries the approval that authorised it and the date that approval lapses, so it reads as a decision somebody took rather than a number the seller was holding back. The implementation row is amber because it is a fixed fee inheriting three unconfirmed assumptions. The data load row sets the date on the cover.

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What is in the pack

01

Claim Provenance

Every substantive statement typed as buyer-sourced, commitment, assertion or unsourced, with its source, its owner and a verdict of keep, restate or cut.

02

Assumption Register

Each assumption with who confirmed it, on which side, on what date, and what it costs in money and weeks if it turns out to be false.

03

Validity Register

Every clock in the document held separately, so the cover date is set from the earliest one rather than from a round thirty days.

04

Pricing Build

The arithmetic behind every line, with each adjustment carrying its reason, its approver and the date that approval lapses.

05

Scope Definition

Every scope item carries a boundary test, because the dispute in month four is always a case neither the in list nor the out list anticipated.

06

Assumptions and Exclusions

The customer-facing version, where every exclusion traces back to a numbered assumption and carries the same cost figure.

07

Executive Summary

One page written to be forwarded, ending with what has to be true and the date the offer actually expires rather than a round number.

08

Claim Standard

The four types, what each one costs you to keep, and the two checks that catch a promise contradicting your own contract paper.

How it works

  1. 1

    Type the claims

    Send the draft. Every statement is sorted into four types, commitments get an owner, assertions get evidence, and unsourced copy is cut rather than reworded.

  2. 2

    Price the assumptions

    Each assumption gets a confirmer, a date, and a cost in money and weeks, then the unconfirmed exposure is totalled against the fixed fee.

  3. 3

    Set the clocks

    Every expiry in the document is recorded separately with its owner, and the cover date is set from whichever runs out first.

  4. 4

    Answer when it returns

    Weeks later, the register says in one line what still holds, what needs re-checking and what has moved, instead of a rebuild.

Frequently asked questions

Is this template free?

Yes. Five Word documents and four CSV sheets, downloaded as a zip, no signup. River is the optional half: it types every claim in your draft, prices the assumptions and sets the clocks. Single-shot jobs live in River's tool index and the rest in the template library.

Why does an unconfirmed assumption change the contract type?

Because time and materials exists for exactly that case. It may be used only when the extent or duration of the work cannot be estimated with confidence. Three unconfirmed sentences carrying half your fixed fee is that situation, whether or not the paperwork says so.

What is wrong with a thirty day validity?

Nothing chose it. Underneath it a price book revises, a discount approval lapses, a delivery slot is released and a third-party quote expires, all on different dates. In the worked example the cover outlived the quote behind one of its own lines by eight days.

Does this replace my proposal software?

No. Proposal tools handle layout, sending and signature well. What none of them holds is where each sentence came from, what an assumption costs if it is wrong, and which of five expiry dates in the document runs out first. That is what these four sheets are. When the buyer sends their own scoring sheet instead, the matrix response answers inside it.

How is this different from an ROI model?

The business case argues that the spend is worth making, and that model is its own job with its own benefit register and cash test. This pack builds the offer itself: the scope, the price, the promises, and what has to be true for the number to hold. What that number actually conceded, once the non-price terms are priced, is the concession log.

What is a boundary test?

The rule that settles a case neither scope list anticipated. A site opened after the meter schedule date, a report field needing a new data source. Every dispute at implementation is one of these, so an in and out list alone never resolves it.

What happens when the buyer goes quiet and comes back?

You get a same-day answer instead of a rebuild. The Validity Register runs today's date against every clock and produces three lists: still holds, needs re-checking, and has moved. Re-issuing the whole document because one pass-through line changed invites the buyer to reopen everything. Keeping them from going quiet in the first place is the follow-up sequence.

Sources

  1. legislation.gov.ukThe Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 (opens in a new tab)
  2. Acquisition.gov16.202-1 Description (opens in a new tab)
  3. Acquisition.gov16.601 Time-and-materials contracts (opens in a new tab)

Written by

Chandler Supple

Co-founder & CEO, River

Chandler has spent the last six years working in AI, building tools for millions of users and Fortune 100 companies. In 2025, he co-founded River to build a new kind of operating system for AI agents.

LinkedInGitHubX

Reviewed by

Brian Joseff, Co-founder, River

LinkedInX

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Find out what your proposal actually says before four strangers read it

Send the draft, the price and your master agreement. The typing pass takes one read and it changes what the document contains.

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