SP Proposal Management

A modern proposal management platform we designed and built end to end for Severich & Partner, bringing quotes, stock, and invoicing together in one system so the team can build, send, and track proposals without juggling spreadsheets.

The Brief

Severich & Partner GmbH & Co. KG was managing proposals the slow way: quotes built by hand, prices and stock tracked in separate spreadsheets, and invoices created from scratch each time. It was error-prone, hard to keep consistent, and did not scale. Severich & Partner needed one application to create professional proposals quickly, keep pricing and stock in sync, generate documents automatically, and serve clients in more than one language. Our job was to design and build that platform.

What We Built

We delivered SP Proposal Management as a single web application covering the full quote-to-invoice flow.

• Proposal builder: a drag-and-drop interface for assembling quotes line by line, with rich-text content and live calculations as items change.
• Pricing and formulas: a formula engine that computes totals, margins, taxes, and discounts automatically, so numbers are always consistent.
• Stock management: product and stock tracking connected directly to proposals and invoicing.
• Invoicing: invoices generated from accepted proposals, no manual re-entry.
• Document generation: automatic, professional PDF output for proposals and invoices, plus Excel import and export for bulk data.
• Multilingual: full English and German support, so proposals can be produced in the client's language.
• Admin and auth: secure login with role-based access and an admin dashboard with reporting and charts.

The Architecture

We built SP Proposal Management as a clean client-server application: a React frontend talking to an Express API over a MySQL database. The frontend is organised around a fast, interactive proposal builder, while the backend owns the business logic for pricing, document generation, and data integrity.

Document and spreadsheet generation (PDF and Excel) runs on the server using a headless browser and PDF tooling, so output is consistent and print-ready. The whole environment is containerized with Docker for repeatable setup across development and staging.

The Stack

• Backend: Node.js, Express, MySQL. Hardened with Helmet, validation, and JWT authentication.
• Frontend: React, Chakra UI, React Query, with dnd-kit for drag-and-drop, react-hook-form for forms, and Recharts for reporting.
• Calculations: a formula engine (expr-eval and mathjs) for proposal pricing and totals.
• Documents: pdf-lib, PDFKit, and Puppeteer for PDF generation; ExcelJS and XLSX for spreadsheet import and export.
• Email: Nodemailer for sending proposals and notifications.
• Infrastructure: Docker and Docker Compose, with development and staging environments and Adminer for database management.

The Outcome

We delivered a platform that turns proposal creation from a manual, spreadsheet-driven chore into a fast, consistent, professional process for Severich & Partner. Quotes are built in minutes with calculations that are always correct, stock and pricing stay in sync, invoices flow straight from accepted proposals, and everything can be produced in English or German. The result is faster turnaround, fewer errors, and a system the business can grow on.

A platform built for real sales operations: fast, accurate, and engineered to scale.