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Automating proposal attachment validation
Short answer
Proposal attachment automation compares the package to be sent with the list set for this request, flags a file from another proposal or a missing document and sends the question to the author of that material. The person responsible for the proposal decides on sending. At Syntalith the automation costs from €3,000 net, and with 80 proposal packages a month at 45 minutes each it pays back in 2.1 months.
How we workDetails ↓
- 01Call30 minutes with an engineer, free
- 02PrototypeA working system on your process and data, free
- 03ImplementationTarget and fixed price in the contract; 50% at signing
- 04Acceptance50% once the agreed target is met
- net for the automation of one process, build paid once
- from €3,000
- from signing the contract to acceptance
- 2–6 weeks
- free prototype on your cases
- €0
We belong to the OpenAI and Anthropic partner programmes and learn through their official courses. What this means ↓
Author: Syntalith · 3 min read
Statistics
Proposals and AI: statistics 2026
2.1 mo.
payback of a €3,000 automation at 80 proposal packages a month: €2,094 of work today, €631 with checking and the model. Scenario.
71%
According to the European Commission (2025), SMEs win 71% of contracts under the EU public procurement rules.
Source: European Commission, evaluation of the EU public procurement directives (2025) ↗
40%
According to a study published in Science (2023), ChatGPT cut the time 453 professionals spent on writing tasks by 40%.
Source: Noy and Zhang, Science (2023) ↗
90%
According to the European Commission (2026), 90% of companies using AI say that people take the decisions, and 2% of decisions are fully automated.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 578 (2026) ↗
14–56%
According to Anthropic (2025), studies with a control group found smaller time savings, from 14% to 56%.
Source: Anthropic, Estimating AI productivity gains (2025) ↗
Figures checked: 22 October 2026
Proposal attachments: check the package the recipient will get
The team polished the proposal, and an attachment from a previous bid stayed in the package to be sent: references for another client. The coordinator spots it during the final review, two hours before the deadline, and asks the whole team for the „final files”. Ticking „attachment added” on the list was not enough, because the document was there and came from another proposal.
The list the team has set refers to the specific request and its changes. The automation checks that every file in the package belongs to this proposal and this version of the requirements, and shows the coordinator the missing items with the author of each. The question goes to the author of the missing material. When an author adds a correction after an earlier check, the coordinator sees that the contents of the package have changed.
- The list of requirements for this request with the author of each item
- Files in the package assigned to items on the list
- An item waiting for its author kept apart from one deliberately left out
- A change in the package contents since the last check
Before sending, the team reviews the list of documents in the package with references to the files. When you later need to answer what was submitted, the list stays with the proposal.
What proposal attachment checks cost and when they pay back
- Today
- 80 proposal packages × 45 min = 60 h (€2,094)
- With the system, a person checks the output in 30% of the time
- €628
- Model, 2 calls per case, Claude Sonnet 5.5
- €3
- Cost of one case
- €26.18 today, €7.89 with the system
- Saving
- €1,463 a month
Payback of €3,000
2.1 months
The volume, the time and the checking share are the scenario's assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat. Model: 8,000 input tokens and 600 output tokens per call at Anthropic's rates, converted at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
The count covers the work around each case: searching, reading, writing and handing over. What remains is the time to check the result, 30% of today's work in the scenario. Before the quote we measure both times on 20 to 100 cases the team has already handled, in a free test that takes 5 working days.
An attachment from another bid is more than an embarrassment in front of the client. In a public tender or with confidential references, it can mean disclosing someone else's data. So in the test we count the files the automation flagged as not matching the request.
A document library can solve part of the problem
Microsoft describes version history in SharePoint libraries. If the proposal has a fixed list and everyone works in one library, tidy folders and the coordinator's review are enough. An automation makes sense when every request has a different list, files come from several teams, and the final review takes hours. Preparing the content of the proposal itself is described on quote automation.
A fixed list, one library
folders and the coordinator's review
no build
A few proposals a quarter
a checklist before sending
no build
Dozens of proposals, different lists, many authors
an automation that checks the package
from €3,000
Where to start
The first scope covers one type of proposal and the place where files are stored today. Start the call with the last proposal where attachments had to be collected again. We build this kind of system as part of our AI automations. For the free process review, a description of one case from the last few weeks and the tools it went through is enough. You do not need to send confidential documents, and you receive a written plan within 2 working days.
Worked example · Scenario
How we count the payback: quote automation
We run the same count for your proposals in the free process review.
€2,094
a month for preparing 120 quotes from customer enquiries by hand
Payback: 1.7 mo.
30 minutes per quote from an enquiry and checking in 15% of the old time are our assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat, for companies with 10 or more employees. Model cost: Claude Sonnet 5.5, about 4,000 + 1,500 tokens per draft quote, at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026. The extra margin is a scenario: we assume that 1 in 40 enquiries quoted the same day ends in an order that a slow reply loses today, with a margin of €344. In the review we count it on your sales process.
See the full calculation →
