Following up a proposal that has not been answered
How a firm should follow up a fee proposal the prospect has neither accepted nor declined, with dated tasks, a reply-aware sequence and a personal e-mail.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
The proposal went out on a Thursday. The prospect had been keen in the meeting, asked good questions and promised to look at it over the weekend. Three weeks later there has been no acceptance, no decline and no reply. The partner does not want to seem pushy. The manager assumes the partner is handling it. Meanwhile the prospect is quietly deciding between this firm and another one that phoned twice.
Silence after a proposal is normal. Prospects are busy, proposals go to someone else for approval, and year-end pressures push the decision back. The firms that win more of these are not the pushiest; they are the ones that follow up on a plan, politely, and know when to stop.
Checking where the proposal stands
Start with the facts. In Achekam, the prospect opens the proposal from a link and can accept or decline it. Acceptance is recorded with the person's name and the time, is not an electronic signature, and raises the engagement letter for the prospect to sign. Letters are then tracked under CRM & SALES > Engagement Letters / Contracts, and can also be recorded as signed on paper.
So before anyone sends a reminder, check:
- Has the proposal been accepted? If so, the next step is the engagement letter, not a follow-up.
- Has it been declined? If so, find out why, and close the lead with a reason.
- Is an engagement letter waiting for signature? A prospect who accepted but has not signed needs a different, simpler nudge.
A proposal that is neither accepted nor declined is the case this article is about. The full path from proposal to signed letter is set out in from proposal to signed engagement letter.
Follow-up tasks with dates
The single most effective habit is to put the next follow-up on the lead the day the proposal goes out. Staff can put dated follow-up tasks on a lead for themselves or a colleague, mark them done or cancelled, and see overdue follow-ups and those due over the next seven days. Follow-ups are never deleted.
A simple plan for an unanswered proposal:
| When | Action | Who |
|---|---|---|
| A few days after sending | Check the prospect received it and has no questions | The person who met them |
| About two weeks after | Offer a short call to walk through the proposal | The partner |
| About a month after | Ask directly whether to keep the proposal open | The partner |
| After that | Close as lost, or agree a later date | The owner of the lead |
Adjust the timing to the work. A once-off tax return can be chased faster than an audit appointment that needs board approval. What matters is that each step exists as a dated task with a named person, so it cannot fall between two people who each think the other is doing it. More on the task list itself in follow-up tasks so no lead is forgotten.
A sequence that stops on reply
Some firms prefer to automate the early reminders. A firm can build follow-up sequences of tasks and AI-written e-mails that, once switched on, enrol leads and stop when the lead replies, books a meeting, is won or lost, or says it is not interested. A new sequence starts paused. At most one automatic e-mail goes to an address in 12 hours, and a step that cannot be sent becomes a follow-up for a person.
Two cautions specific to proposals:
- Sequence e-mails are sent without anyone reading each one. For a proposal worth real money, that is a risk. Keep automated messages short and generic, and leave anything about fees or scope to a person.
- Replies must be seen to stop the sequence. A firm can switch on a check of its sending mailbox in Microsoft 365 or Gmail, so that an e-mail from the lead stops its sequence. Plain SMTP cannot be read, and replies sent to a staff member's own mailbox are not seen. A prospect who replies to the partner directly may still receive the next automated reminder unless someone stops it.
Used carefully, a sequence handles the gentle early reminders and leaves the important conversations to people.
A personal e-mail from the record
For the later steps, write personally. From the lead or opportunity, staff can have AI draft an e-mail from a preset, edit it, and send it, and the message is kept on the record. Edit the draft until it reads as the partner writing to someone they met, not as a template.
A good follow-up of this kind:
- refers to something specific from the meeting;
- asks one clear question, such as whether a short call would help;
- offers to adjust the proposal if the scope or timing has changed;
- makes it easy to say "not now".
Remember that "Sent" means only that the mail provider accepted the message. If a follow-up matters, and the prospect is silent, pick up the phone.
When to close it
There is a point at which continued chasing damages the relationship more than it helps. Agree as a firm when that point is, and close the lead as lost when it is reached, with a reason. A lead someone has worked cannot be deleted anyway; it is closed as lost, keeping the history in case the prospect returns.
Persistence also has a professional dimension. The fundamental principles in the IESBA International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants, professional behaviour among them, apply to how a firm promotes its services as much as to how it delivers them. A follow-up programme that a prospect would describe as harassment is not one a professional firm should run.
Look at your open proposals today. For each one with no dated next step, add one now, with a name against it.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
