Approvals are a key part of the solicitation process. But, all too often, they’re the source of serious headaches for procurement teams and stakeholders alike.

That’s because obtaining them is often an informal, manual process – using email chains and follow-up phone calls – that results in longer solicitation cycles, project delays, and poor visibility.

We know this issue hinders productivity for many procurement teams, which is why we’re so excited to announce the launch of our new Approvals feature, now an integral part of Bonfire.

Introducing Approvals in Bonfire

Using the new Approvals feature, you can capture your existing approvals process in Bonfire for consolidated visibility, turnkey compliance, and improved stakeholder engagement with solicitations.

Most importantly, you can say goodbye to unnecessary friction in the process and reclaim your time, so you can focus on your most challenging work.

Capture and streamline your existing approvals process

Here’s how the Approvals feature removes even more internal barriers to efficient solicitations, gets everyone on the same page and keeps projects running on time—making life easier for your procurement team and stakeholders:

• Simplify the approvals workflow with standardized templates, straightforward forms, and concise email notifications and reminders.
• Easily track approval requests at multiple stages of a purchase, from intake all the way through to awarding a vendor, and quickly generate reports.
• Let Bonfire take care of the follow-up with your approvers through system-generated reminders to encourage timely review and submission of responses, as well as immediate notifications to buyers as soon as anything changes.
• Improve efficiency with repeatable templates that let you identify stakeholders and get approval requests out quickly.
• Eliminate the time crunch with heightened visibility into the status of all current, upcoming, and past requests on the approvals dashboard, helping you keep projects on time.
• Automate compliance with turnkey reporting that tracks approval statuses across multiple people, emails, and phone calls and generates real-time audit reports.

Expedite approvals at every stage of the process

Ensuring stakeholders review and approve key elements of the solicitation process is essential. Sign-off needs to happen at multiple stages of the process, and the Approvals feature is designed to make it seamless and straightforward for everyone involved.

Beginning with intake, you can capture all approval steps alongside a new procurement request as it progresses and keep all details organized in one place. The Approvals feature provides a consistent experience for end users and a transparent view into the request status.

When it comes to creating requirements, Approvals delivers an audit trail, common approval steps, pre-scheduled email reminders, and notifications for late approvals, making it easier and faster to finalize RFP requirements with stakeholders.

Prior to bid posting, Approvals ensures all finalized documents are signed-off by relevant stakeholders, including end users, legal, procurement, and any other offices before posting. Anyone can be added as an approver — even non-Bonfire users. It’s also quicker to post addenda by getting quick approval on any Q&As, forms, or documents being shared.

Finally, when it comes to the award recommendation, Approvals streamlines the process of summarizing the results and putting forward a recommendation on which vendor to award.

Approvals minus the headache

Up until now, managing and responding to approvals in the solicitations process might feel like a time sink that adds more stress and administrative overhead to your already-full plate.

Approvals in Bonfire eliminates the burden by easily connecting all stakeholders in a fast, efficient, and streamlined workflow that’s purpose-built to solve procurement teams’ biggest barriers to efficient solicitations.

To see Approvals in action, join our upcoming webinar, where we will show you how to add approval requests, track them, and generate reports at every stage of the procurement process.