What is the paper process?

Legal review, security review, procurement, vendor onboarding, purchase order, signature. All the steps after a decision is made and before money moves.

Why does it matter so much for forecasting?

Because a deal can be won on every other dimension and still slip a quarter because security review takes six weeks. A close date not derived from the paper process is a guess.

When should you ask about it?

Long before the verbal yes. Asking after agreement means discovering a six-week step with two weeks left in the quarter.

Named steps, named owners, rough durations, and what triggers each. Ask what happened with the last comparable purchase — process questions are answered readily.

Paper Process

The contractual, legal, security and procurement steps between verbal agreement and a signed contract.

Why it is where forecasts die

Everything else in qualification concerns whether the buyer wants to proceed. The paper process concerns how long proceeding takes, and it is largely outside both your control and your champion's.

The signature that means a close date is not real

When a close date moves for a second time with no change in buyer intent, the paper process was not mapped. The deal is not at risk; the date was never derived from anything.

Mapping it

Ask how the last comparable purchase actually got signed, and who was involved after the decision.
List the steps with owners and rough durations — legal, security, procurement, vendor onboarding, PO.
Identify which run in parallel and which are strictly sequential. Sequential steps set the floor on time to close.
Find what can start early. Security questionnaires and vendor onboarding frequently can begin before final agreement.
Set the close date from the map, and revise it when the map changes rather than when the quarter demands.

Common hidden steps

Security or infosec review, which in regulated buyers can exceed everything else combined.
Vendor onboarding and supplier registration, often owned by a team nobody in the deal has met.
Budget release, which may be a separate approval from the buying decision.
Signature authority thresholds that route the contract higher than anyone expected.

RELATED TERMS

Sales Cycle Length

The elapsed time from an opportunity's creation to its close. The time dimension underneath capacity planning and forecasting.

MEDDPICC

MEDDIC extended with Paper process and Competition — acknowledging that deals are lost to procurement and to rivals as often as to unclear value.

Decision Process

The sequence of steps, approvals and reviews a buyer must complete before a purchase can be executed.

Deal Desk

A cross-functional function reviewing non-standard deals — pricing exceptions, unusual terms, complex structures — before they are committed.

COMMON QUESTIONS

What is the paper process?: Legal review, security review, procurement, vendor onboarding, purchase order, signature. All the steps after a decision is made and before money moves.
Why does it matter so much for forecasting?: Because a deal can be won on every other dimension and still slip a quarter because security review takes six weeks. A close date not derived from the paper process is a guess.
When should you ask about it?: Long before the verbal yes. Asking after agreement means discovering a six-week step with two weeks left in the quarter.
How do you map it?: Named steps, named owners, rough durations, and what triggers each. Ask what happened with the last comparable purchase — process questions are answered readily.

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