Crafting and sending documents is a crucial part of the sales process. This includes contracts, forms, MSAs, and various other documents shared on a regular basis. Ensuring branding and tone consistency across documents is a crucial but difficult task. With Documents in Freshsales, companies can solve this challenge and also eliminate manual work involved in creating documents. Additionally, it also helps reduce the chances of manual errors as the pricing values are automatically calculated by the system, helping maintain the accuracy of documents across the org.    

What are documents?

Use the documents module to create unique templates for quotes, proposals, NDAs, MSAs, contracts, and any other document that you frequently use in your business. Sales teams can easily create the document they need in a few clicks and share it with the contact on email. The document is auto-tagged to the deal/contact record. This eliminates the need for manually associating the document with the record. You can view the documents created in the Documents module from the left navigation pane. 

How to enable documents

To get started with creating documents, you need to enable the Documents module on Freshsales. 

• Once you have purchased the CPQ add-on, head over to Admin Settings -> CPQ settings -> Documents. Enable the Documents toggle. 
• Enabling Documents will have an impact on your account, confirm the change on the next step. 

• Next, configure the document types required. Create up to 20 unique document types that users can choose from. The values displayed here will be shown on the document type dropdown in the Documents module. The default options are Quote, Proposal, Non-disclosure agreement, and Master service agreement. Add custom document types and click save!

Setting up the Documents module

The next step is to set up the fields in the document module. The default required fields are Document type, Document template, Deal, and Primary contact. You can map the fields here with the fields in the other modules. The related values from the fields will be automatically populated on the Documents module, eliminating the need for salespeople to manually input the data and reduce the chance of error.

Here’s how you can map your module field with the document:

1. Head over to the Documents module from the Admin Settings.
2. From the “Add field” option, choose the custom field type. Example: We can create a “Billing City” field that can be added as a placeholder to the document. 
3. Map the field with the “Billing City” field from the Accounts module.
4. Click Save! The value will be pre-filled in the document and any changes made on the deal field will automatically reflect in the document draft.  

Set up custom document stages that suit your sales process. The default stages include Draft, Sent to customer, Accepted, and Declined. 

Creating a document 

Before creating a document, ensure that document templates are available in the account. Here’s how you can create document templates.

1. To create a document,

   1. Head over to the Documents module from the left navigation pane and click on Add document.

   2. Click on the Quick-add option (+ icon) on the top right corner and click Add document.

   3. Navigate to the related documents section on the deal landing page and click on Create quote.

2. In the document pane, enter the document name and choose the document type and template.

3. Enter the name of the associated deal. If available, the account and primary contact fields are auto-populated from the deal module.

4. Click Save! Your document is now ready. 

   
   

All placeholder fields are displayed on the left-hand side. You can input the value for empty fields, it will be automatically added to the document. You can also edit the placeholder values that were auto-populated from the related deal. If there are empty fields, a banner message will display the number of fields required. 

Document activity timeline

Track the activities related to a document from the View Activity section. View the updates and changes made to the document including when it is sent to the customer in chronological order.