Create a New Deal Plan

Owned by
Andrew Donaldson
Last updated: Mar 15, 2024 by
Ioana Kocurova
6 min read

Creating a New Deal Plan

The Deal Planning module is a tool for managing complex long-term business negotiations in a structured and well organized way. 

A typical large deal with a strategic client takes anywhere from a few months to a year or more and involves many people from different teams.

 The Deal Planning module supports the whole process from deal preparation to closing – you can use it to record negotiation rounds, outcomes from meetings, action items, points for discussion and include all the related documents.

How To

Crate a New Deal Plan

All our how-to guides and video tutorials contain screenshots of our demo system and the information that you see will differ depending on your organizational configuration and the version of Pricefx software that you are running.

In this guide, you will be walking through the steps to create a new Deal Plan in Pricefx as well as look at the functionality available throughout the deal planning process.

The Deal Planning module is a tool for managing complex long-term business negotiations in a structured and well-organized way. 

A typical large deal with a strategic client takes anywhere from a few months to a year or more and involves many people from different teams.

The Deal Planning module supports the whole process from deal preparation to closing – you can use it to record negotiation rounds, outcomes from meetings, action items, points for discussion and include all the related documents.

On the menu navigate to Deal Planning > Deal Plans and you'll be presented with all the deal plans that you have access to see. These could be active, revoked, or draft plans.

Create a New Deal

If this is similar to an existing deal plan, or if you are creating multiple deal plans, you can use the Duplicate function. This works by simply selecting the deal plan that you wish to create a duplicate for and clicking on Duplicate. It's that simple. 

If you want to start from scratch you can simply click on the Add Deal Plan button, Give the new Deal Plan a name and select a Plan Type on which the Deal Plan will be based.

Click on the Add button.

Once a Deal Plan is created, you can start the preparatory work for your first negotiation round.

The process is divided into several steps (as configured by the Plan Type):

 Step 1 - Assessment

Key Information tab – Fill in the default fields (Deal name and initiation/open/close dates, customer and external reference) and fields defined by the header logic. Optionally, add a comment. Do not forget to click on the Save button to complete it.

Documents tab: 

Plan Specific documents allow you to attach documents created in Pricefx that relate to this plan.

  1. Click on the Add Document and select a document category (Quotes, Rebate Agreements, Claims, Agreements & Promotions, Price Lists, Deal Plans).

  1. Select documents that you want to attach to your plan.

  2. Click on the Confirm button.

  • Files – Here you can upload any external document that relates to this plan.

  • Related – Displays all Pricefx documents (Quotes, Rebate Agreements, Agreements & Promotions, Claims, Deal Plans) related to the customer selected on the Key Information tab (if implemented).

Messages tab – On this tab, you can send and receive messages to and from other users regarding this Deal Plan. This functionality is available also for users with the View Deal Plan user role.

Actions tab – Here you can create tasks and assign them to yourself or somebody else. For each task, you can add a description (no length limit) and set the due date. If a task is assigned to you, you can mark it as done or cancel. Done or canceled tasks can be reopened if needed.

Notes tab – This tab enables you to keep simple notes related to the Deal Plan. There is no length limit.

Step 2 - Offering

Let's now look at the Offerings Step.

The Offerings Tab is where you set the drivers and objectives of the negotiation so that you can start the negotiation rounds.

Below the Driver's label, the status is shown. If there is a negotiation round where this driver has been agreed, a link to this round is displayed together with information when it was agreed on.

When editing Drivers & Objectives:

  • You can add one or more drivers.

  • You can edit or delete a driver until the Deal Plan is submitted or the document is in a different state than draft.

  • The available fields include the Driver label and the following fields in both Ours and Theirs columns:

  • Message

  • Impact

  • Anchor

  • Most Desired Outcomes (MDO)

  • Least Acceptable Agreement (LAA)

  • You can even attach system documents (Quote, Rebate Agreement, Agreement & Promotion, Claim, Price List, Deal Plan) related to this driver.

When all the drivers and objectives are prepared, submit the Deal Plan for approval, which makes Key Information, Drivers, Rounds, and Round items non-editable. Once the Deal Plan is approved, its status changes to Offer which unlocks the next steps.

Step 3 - Negotiations

Here you can record your negotiation rounds so that you can keep the negotiations output in one place.

You can add one or several negotiation rounds. For each round, write a summary of the negotiation and add one or more items to create a structured record of the negotiation round.

Round Items

Round Items cover the objectives (drivers) discussed during this round, so you will typically add one item for each driver. You can also add documents to support your rounds.

For each Round Item, the following fields are available:

  • Driver / Item Title – Select a driver from the drop-down list. When there is no suitable driver available, you can enter an item title instead. Later, when a such a driver is created, you can edit the Round Item and select this driver in the edit dialog. The Round item will be automatically renamed after the selected driver.

  • Agreement reached in the negotiation round.

  • Give & Gets emerging from the negotiation round.

  • Check box, to specify if the discussion for the given driver is finalized

  • Attendees 

  • Agreed with 

  • Notes from the negotiation.

  • Item Documents – Attach documents (Quote, Rebate Agreement, Agreement & Promotion, Claim, Price List, Deal Plan) related to this negotiation round item.

You can edit existing rounds unless the document is in the Deal or Lost status.

Rounds can be deleted, with the exception of final agreements.

Note: Quick filters and the group-by functionality is not available in the Negotiation Rounds table.

When all the negotiation rounds are successfully closed, click the Convert to Deal button, which changes the status to Deal and unlocks the Results step. 

Step 4 - Results

This tab displays a list of Drivers which have been agreed under this Deal Plan.

For each driver, you can see the closing date (which works as a link to the round in which the driver was agreed) and a description of the final agreement. Clicking the name of a Driver takes you to the negotiation round where this Driver was agreed.