A definition you can quote, the steps and who owns each, an illustrative worked timeline showing sequential against parallel, and how to compress it without skipping anything.
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Quick answer
The paper process is everything that has to happen between a buyer deciding to proceed and a contract being signed and payable.
It is the least examined part of most sales cycles, for an understandable reason: almost none of it is about the product, and none of the people involved were persuaded of anything. Procurement, legal, and information security did not attend the demonstration and have no stake in the enthusiasm that produced the decision.
Owned by information security or IT. Usually a standard questionnaire, frequently queued behind other reviews already in progress. This is the step most often underestimated and the one most easily started early.
Owned by legal, internal or external. Duration is driven by the number of redline cycles rather than by any single clause, and each cycle carries waiting time at both ends.
Owned by the procurement function. Checks that policy has been followed, that alternatives were considered where required, and that commercial terms are acceptable.
Creating you as a vendor in their systems: bank details, tax documentation, compliance declarations. Frequently forgotten and capable of adding a week or more on its own.
Required by many organisations before any invoice can be paid. A contract signed without one can still leave the seller waiting.
By someone with authority at that value. Authority is banded almost everywhere, and a contract requiring a signature two levels above the project sponsor introduces a person with no context and other priorities.
These durations are invented to demonstrate the effect of sequencing. They are not benchmarks.
Run in sequence. Security review four weeks, then legal review and redlines three weeks, then procurement approval two weeks, then supplier onboarding one week, then purchase order one week, then signature one week. Total: twelve weeks.
Run in parallel. Security review and legal review begin together in week one, taking four and three weeks respectively. Supplier onboarding starts in week two, since it does not depend on the contract being final. Procurement approval begins in week five once security has cleared and takes two weeks. The purchase order is prepared during week six and issued in week seven, with signature arranged in the same period. Total: roughly six to seven weeks.
Nothing was skipped and no step was shortened. The only change is that steps which never genuinely depended on one another stopped waiting for each other, and the longest step, security review, was moved off the critical path by starting it first.
It makes the last third of a sales cycle forecastable. A deal at verbal agreement is not a deal about to close; it is a deal about to enter a process with its own duration, its own owners, and its own queue positions.
It also identifies the highest-leverage available action in most cycles. Compressing the paper process usually saves more calendar time than any improvement to discovery, demonstration, or negotiation, and it costs almost nothing beyond asking questions earlier.
The default and the most expensive. Every step then begins from a standing start, in sequence, with the seller discovering each requirement as it arrives.
Most sequencing is habit. Asking the buyer which steps genuinely require a predecessor typically reveals that two or three can run alongside each other.
A perfectly agreed contract can sit for three weeks because the person who must sign it is unaware the project exists.
An aggressive template guarantees redlines, and redlines are the main determinant of legal duration. A clear, commercially reasonable document closes faster than a favourable one that takes four cycles to negotiate.
Financial year ends, audit periods, and holidays affect the paper process more than any other part of a deal, because the constraint is availability rather than willingness.
A well-run paper process is mapped before the verbal agreement, has standard documents already completed, runs independent steps in parallel, has confirmed signature authority and purchase order requirements, and shows a status per step on the opportunity. When it slips, the specific step is identifiable within days.
A badly run one begins at agreement, discovers each requirement in turn, waits for each step to finish before starting the next, and produces a deal that has been closing for two months with no explanation more specific than the buyer is working through it.
| Step | Can it start early | What usually delays it |
|---|---|---|
| Security review | Yes, request the questionnaire during evaluation | A queue of other reviews already in progress |
| Legal review | Yes, share the agreement before agreement | Multiple redline cycles with waiting at both ends |
| Procurement approval | Partly, once policy requirements are known | Evidence that alternatives were considered |
| Supplier onboarding | Yes, it rarely depends on the contract | Forms routed to finance and then forgotten |
| Purchase order | Only after approval, but can be prepared | A missing internal requisition step |
| Signature | No, but the signatory can be identified early | Authority thresholds and the signatory's absence |
Record the paper process steps on the opportunity with owners, statuses, and dates. A deal awaiting procurement approval is a different forecast risk from one awaiting a commercial decision, and a pipeline that cannot distinguish them will keep producing the same end-of-quarter surprise. The recorded durations also become the best available estimate for the next deal at that organisation.
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The buyer said yes in March and the contract was signed in June.
The paper process was started at the verbal agreement instead of alongside the evaluation. Ask early what happens after agreement and request the standard documents then. Security questionnaires and vendor forms cost nothing to complete in advance and remove the longest steps from the critical path entirely.Paper process started early
Every step is waiting for the previous one and the timeline keeps extending.
Most steps do not genuinely depend on each other. Security review can run alongside legal, vendor onboarding can begin before the contract is final, and the purchase order can be prepared while signature is arranged. Ask the buyer which steps truly require a predecessor. Usually fewer than assumed, and sequencing them is habit rather than requirement.Parallel rather than sequential
The contract came back needing a signature two levels above the person who agreed it.
Ask about signature authority at this value during the decision process, not after the contract is drafted. Authority is banded almost everywhere, and finding out late means locating a senior person who has never heard of the project, has other priorities, and may be travelling.Signature authority confirmed early
Legal negotiation has run for six weeks over clauses nobody considers important.
Long redline cycles usually come from an unreasonable starting document on one side or the other. Keep your standard agreement clear and commercially reasonable, know in advance which clauses you can concede quickly, and offer a call between the two legal teams rather than another exchange of tracked changes.Reasonable standard terms
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