Create a practice proposal, price a task in its budget, synchronise the proposal’s line items and download a Word document. By the end, you’ll have a draft you can inspect without sending anything to a client.
Time: About 10–15 minutes, once your demo data is ready.
Before you begin
Use a Drum Admin account for this lesson.
Complete Getting started with opportunities in Drum and use the same demo opportunity, Drum Demo - First Sales Opportunity.
Use the Example Quote Template shown in this lesson. Its budget contains the Planning deliverable, the Project Kickoff & Requirements task and a Senior Staff resource estimate.
Check that the example proposal template has a Word document attached, so Download Word Document is available.
Have Microsoft Word or another application that can open a Word document.
Example data varies between accounts. Newer accounts may have an Example Proposal Template instead. If the named opportunity, template or budget task is missing, open the support chat in Drum and ask the team to help prepare the example data for this lesson before continuing.
Work on a new proposal attached to the demo opportunity. The rates and amounts below are practice values.
1. Create a proposal from the example template
Open Drum Demo - First Sales Opportunity. Click Proposals, then Add Proposal.
In Template, select Example Quote Template. Click Save.
You should see: A new proposal created from the selected template. Keep its status as Draft throughout this lesson.
2. Identify your practice proposal
In the left-hand sidebar, enter Demo website redesign in Description. Click outside the field to save. Leave the proposal number and other details unchanged for this exercise.
You should see: Demo website redesign in the Description field. The screenshot illustrates the location of the sidebar details.
The proposal holds the line items and prices for the client document. Its budget is where you estimate the work before copying that pricing into the proposal.
3. Price a task in the proposal budget
Click Project Budget at the top of the proposal.
In the Planning deliverable, find Project Kickoff & Requirements. On the resource estimate row beneath that task:
Select Senior Staff as the resource type.
Set the quantity to 2 and the unit to Hour.
Set the rate to 400.00. Click outside the field to save the change.
You should see: A resource estimate total of 800.00 in your account’s currency: 2 hours × 400.00. The budget also includes the other tasks supplied by the template, so its overall total will be higher.
If the estimate total is different, check the quantity, unit and rate on that resource row. Changes to the budget are not copied into the proposal’s line items until you synchronise them in the next step.
4. Synchronise the budget with the proposal
Click Proposal to return to the client-facing line items, then click Sync Budget.
In Consolidation Method, select Single stage, converting deliverables to lines. Leave Include non-budgeted tasks unticked.
This replaces the proposal’s existing stages and line items. Check that the proposal’s description is Demo website redesign, then click Sync Budget.
You should see: The proposal’s line items updated from the budget, with deliverables represented as lines in a single stage. Compare the proposal total with the budget total on the same tax basis.
The budget difference indicator compares proposal pricing with budget pricing. It does not, by itself, show your profit or compare your selling price with internal costs. If the totals differ, check that the synchronisation completed and that you have not changed the proposal’s prices afterwards.
5. Download and check the Word document
Below the proposal line items, click Download Word Document. Open the downloaded file in Word.
If Drum says the template has no associated Word document, ask the Drum team to help attach the example Word document to the template. Keep your practice proposal open and retry the download once the template is ready.
Check the client details, proposal line items and total against the proposal in Drum.
You should see: A Word document containing the proposal information from your demo record. Keep the proposal as Draft; you have completed the practice exercise.
What you’ve learned
You have created a practice proposal with a recognisable description, priced a resource estimate, synchronised the budget with the proposal and downloaded a Word document.
You can now follow the same sequence when preparing a proposal for a real client.
Learn more
For background on the two views, read Understanding proposals and budgets in Drum.
For other budget tasks, see Proposal budget overview in Drum.