The gap that led us to Smart Templates...
If you work in bids or proposals, you already know the truth that most RFP software and proposal tools tend to gloss over.
The exhausting part of a bid is not only answering the questions.
It is everything wrapped around them.
• The executive summary that gets written the night before submission.
• The statement of work that has to match what sales promised.
• The qualification sheet that needs scores and rationale.
• The handover pack for delivery.
• The internal approvals, risk logs and sign offs.
Most teams are already stretched trying to keep on top of RFPs, RFIs and security questionnaires. Then every opportunity brings a ring of extra documents that still land on the bid team’s shoulders.
This is the gap that led us to build Smart Templates in Answertree.
This post explains how we got there, what Smart Templates actually are, and why they matter if you are trying to cope with rising bid volume without burning out.
When we first launched Answertree, the focus was clear.
Use AI to help teams:
• Find the right answers in their content.
• Respond to RFPs, DDQs and questionnaires faster.
• Keep everything consistent across Word and Excel.
That solved a real problem. But during proof of value projects and onboarding calls, the same pattern kept coming up, regardless of sector.
Bid and proposal teams talked about:
• Executive summaries that always ran late.
• Statements of work that started from an old document and a lot of manual edits.
• Bid or no bid decisions that lived in an Excel sheet with logic in someone’s head.
• Internal scoring documents and governance decks for each opportunity.
• Handover documents for delivery who needed to know what had been promised.
• Case studies that were recreated from scratch because nobody trusted the last version.
Different industries, same story.
The RFP response was only one part of the job. Around it sat a cluster of repeatable documents and decisions that took time, energy and judgement. When deadlines collided, it was usually the bid team picking up the pieces.
It became obvious that if Answertree only helped answer questions, it was only solving half of the problem.
Across software, recruitment, healthtech, outsourcing and other sectors, a few things stood out.
1. “Templates” were not really templates
Most teams had a Word or PowerPoint file that everyone duplicated and edited. Over time the structure drifted, sections were added and removed, and the logic behind the document lived in the heads of a few experienced people.
2. The same document patterns kept repeating
The label changed, but the underlying pattern did not.
Executive summaries, SOWs, qualification matrices, win themes, risk logs, internal approvals, handover packs. All of them had:
• Familiar sections
• A preferred way of telling the story
• A set of things that must never be forgotten
3. Bid teams were acting as workflow engines
Much of the stress came from coordinating all of this.
Chasing inputs. Keeping formats consistent. Making sure each document reflected the same deal. Explaining context to stakeholders who dipped in late.
4. Existing RFP tools stopped at the questionnaire
Traditional RFP software and RFP tools helped structure responses and manage content, but rarely touched the internal documents that actually anchored the bid management process.
Once you see this pattern, it is hard to unsee it.
The obvious question follows.
If the structure and logic of these documents is so repeatable, why are teams recreating them by hand every time?
Smart Templates in Answertree are designed to move beyond answer suggestions and into document level automation.
Rather than focusing only on individual questions, Smart Templates let you model entire documents and internal workflows, using your own structure and your own language.
At a simple level, a Smart Template is made up of three things.
1. Structure
The sections, headings and layout of the document you care about. For example, the way you always build:
• Executive summaries
• SOWs
• Case studies
• Bid or no bid forms
• Internal scoring sheets
• Handover packs
2. Rules and prompts
The instructions you would give a good writer.
• What to emphasise for a given client.
• Which messages and win themes to lead with.
• How formal or informal the tone should be.
• What must always be included or avoided.
3. Data sources
The places Answertree is allowed to pull from.
• Your knowledge base and past responses.
• Previous bids for similar services.
• Sector or geography specific content.
• Deal details such as solution, price, risks and assumptions.
When a user runs a Smart Template, Answertree uses that structure, those rules and those sources to generate a full document in Word, written in your voice, tailored to the opportunity and aligned with the rest of the bid.
No generic AI essays, no blank page.
Here are a few examples that have come directly from conversations with bidding teams.
Executive summaries
Most teams agree that the executive summary is critical and often the last thing written.
With a Smart Template, the structure is pre defined.
For example:
• Customer context and drivers
• Our understanding of the requirement
• Proposed solution and differentiators
• Value, outcomes and benefits
• Implementation and risk
• Commercials and next steps
When you run the template, Answertree pulls:
• The customer and sector context from your notes and library
• Relevant win themes and differentiators from past bids
• Solution details and scope from the main RFP response
• Any reusable language you have agreed with marketing or leadership
The result is a draft exec summary in your standard format that feels like your organisation, not like a chatbot.
Bid teams then refine and finalise rather than start from zero.
Once a deal is in late stage or awarded, teams often scramble to build:
• A statement of work that aligns with what was sold
• A handover pack so delivery know what has been promised
With Smart Templates, both can be treated as defined document types linked to the opportunity.
The template captures:
• How SOWs should be structured for a given service line
• Which assumptions, dependencies and risks must always be covered
• How to present milestones, responsibilities and acceptance criteria
Answertree uses the underlying bid content plus standard clauses to generate a first draft. It will not replace legal review, but it dramatically reduces manual assembly and copy paste from old documents.
Many teams use Excel sheets or basic tools to decide whether to pursue an opportunity.
The logic usually includes:
• Strategic fit
• Win probability
• Competitor position
• Delivery risk
• Commercial attractiveness
Smart Templates allow this logic to be expressed inside Answertree as a structured internal document. The system can:
• Pre fill known information about the client and opportunity
• Surface relevant insights from similar past bids
• Produce a written rationale to support qualification decisions
This becomes part of the bid record rather than a separate spreadsheet living on a shared drive.
If you already use RFP software, proposal software or a wider RFP platform, you have probably noticed that most tools focus heavily on the external document.
The RFP. The RFI. The security questionnaire.
Smart Templates are designed to sit alongside that, and cover the rest of the bid management process. They complement features such as:
• AI assisted content retrieval
• Knowledge base search
• Collaboration workflows
• SharePoint and Google Drive integration
• Chrome and Edge extensions for working in portals and online questionnaires
In other words, they are part of a broader approach where the platform does not only help you answer questions, but also helps you build and run the full set of documents around each opportunity.
For bid and proposal teams, Smart Templates are not about taking control away. They are about shifting where the effort goes.
Instead of:
• Rebuilding the same SOW or exec summary structure each time
• Trying to remember which version of a case study is the latest
• Manually aligning internal documents to the RFP response
• Acting as the human integration point for every single document
The work moves to:
• Defining the structure and rules once in a template
• Letting Answertree do the first 60 to 80 percent of the drafting
• Spending more time on judgement, strategy and quality, and less on assembly
Over time this also reduces risk.
• Key patterns live in the system, not only in individual heads.
• New team members can get up to speed more quickly.
• The way you present your organisation becomes more consistent across bids.
For teams dealing with high volumes and high expectations, that matters.
If any of this sounds familiar and you are already feeling the pressure of growing bid volumes, Smart Templates might be worth a closer look.
The feature page here has a short overview with more detail on how it works inside Answertree:
https://answertree.ai/features/smart-templates
If you would like to see how it could map to your own executive summaries, SOWs, handovers or internal scoring documents, the easiest next step is a short demo using real examples from your world.
