Google Sheets & Excel Template
Your RFP Process Checklist Template
Never miss a step in your response process. Keep track of all the tasks needed to craft a compelling proposal with our free checklist template.
Our RFP Checklist Template Helps You Effortlessly Manage Your Response Process
Responding to an RFP is a marathon, not a sprint. Use this RFP checklist template to break down high-stakes projects into actionable steps, ensuring you never miss a detail or a deadline.
Whether you have an RFP response process or not, you can:
Outline Your Response Process
Assign clear owners to every RFP task, ensuring your team stays accountable to milestones.
Manage SME Contributions
Automatically monitor workloads and track progress without burning out subject matter experts.
Track All RFP Projects
Get a high-level view of your portfolio’s progress, with instant alerts for projects falling behind.
How Do You Use This Template?
After opening the Google Sheets or Excel version, follow these instructions:
1. Kickstart Your First Project Checklist
Navigate to a fresh project tab (e.g., Project #1) and fill out the Basic Information, Administrative, Timelines, and Opportunity sections for your next RFP. Make sure you’ve included a Submission Date (which triggers the “Days Left” countdown).
2. Assign Tasks, Owners, and Dates
In your Project tab, assign Tasks, Owners, and Due Dates across all five phases, using the Example tab as a guide. Marking tasks as “Finalized” updates the progress bar in real time.
3. Manage SME Burden and Track Progress
For each RFP section, list your subject matter experts (SMEs) and the number of questions assigned to them to auto-calculate the Burden Level (High, Medium, Low). Only include net-new questions or answers requiring updates to ensure the workload reflects the actual effort needed.
4. Monitor the Portfolio Dashboard for RFPs
Copy the template for every new opportunity The Dashboard syncs as you fill out each project, providing a single view of Value, Priority, and Progress across RFPs. The Status will update automatically based on progress and day’s left.
Who Is This RFP Checklist Template For?
This RFP checklist template is especially useful for proposal managers, sales operations teams, and subject matter experts who are responsible for coordinating inputs, tracking progress, and ensuring nothing critical slips through the cracks.
If your team handles multiple RFPs at once, relies on cross-functional contributors, or is trying to standardize how responses are reviewed and approved, this template gives you a practical starting point.
It helps bring structure to each stage of the response process, whether you’re working with a formal RFP workflow or building one for the first time.
As your RFP volume increases, the checklist can evolve with your process, making it easier to reuse, refine, and improve how you respond to every new opportunity.
Using This Template With Loopio
This checklist template is a practical way to manage individual RFPs, but many teams eventually reach a point where spreadsheets become difficult to scale.
As RFP volume grows, tracking owners, deadlines, reviews, and approvals across multiple files can create friction and risk.
With Loopio, you can track tasks and milestones in one place, send automated reminders to contributors, and even receive a proposal checklist and summary that maps RFP requirements, goals, and high-impact asks automatically.
For teams looking to move beyond manual checklists, Loopio helps turn a repeatable process into a system that manages your RFP workload for you.
Ensure that you define a process which allows flexibility when it is required. The ability to respond to a dynamic environment will be a critical component of your ability to produce responses with a high probability of wins. Flexibility must envelop your people, technologies, and procedures holistically.
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FAQs About RFP Checklists
An RFP checklist is a project management tool that helps you keep track of your proposal process and improve consistency.
The checklist breaks down the RFP process into easily manageable pieces. For example:
A response process typically has five phases, and each phase has several tasks associated with it. For instance, an RFP starts in the Evaluation phase, where a proposal team should:
- Review the opportunity
- Asses the RFP
- Add it to a priority list if responding
The proposal then moves into the Plan phase (which has its own set of tasks), and so on, until your team finally submits the RFP.
The checklist helps you assess the status of each task until you reach the finish line. With this visual template, you can better understand where you’re falling behind and where you’re ahead to ultimately meet your RFP deadline.
You can even repurpose the checklist for different requests (like RFIs, RFQs, and more) because there’s nothing more satisfying than completing a to-do list.
The 5 parts or phases of an RFP (as broken down in this checklist) are evaluate, research, plan, draft, and respond.
Evaluate: Consider whether this opportunity is the right fit for your business before investing valuable time, resources, and collective energy
Plan: Map out your RFP response strategy by making a content plan based on your top advantages while kicking off the project with your team.
Draft: Craft a winning response by personalizing answers, enlisting the brainpower of SMEs, and packaging everything into an eye-catching proposal.
Review: Ensure your proposal is polished, compliant, and fully authorized through a series of quality audits, final proofreading, and executive sign-offs.
Respond: Submit your response exactly as the delivery instructions say. Then, save your answers in a content library to repurpose for the next RFP.
The 4 overarching questions Jon Williams, UK Managing Director at Strategic Proposals, recommends asking are:
- Is it a real opportunity?
- Do you want it?
- Can you do it?
- Can you win it?
Before using this checklist process, it’s essential to implement a go/no-go decision tool. Having the answers to the essential questions above while examining other factors like competition, client relationship, timeline, and more, helps your team make informed decisions on whether or not to proceed with an RFP response.
Asking these questions ensures your team assesses customer fit before you begin the RFP process. A go/no-go process is an essential project management tool all proposal managers can benefit from. It helps your team capacity plan and prioritize incoming RFPs with confidence.
Yes. The checklist is designed to be reused across different types of formal requests, including RFPs, RFIs, and RFQs. For each new opportunity, you can simply make a copy of the template and adjust the tasks, timelines, and requirements to match the specific request.
Yes. The checklist works for teams of any size. Smaller teams can use it as a lightweight way to stay organized, while larger teams can adapt it to coordinate multiple contributors, reviews, and approval steps. The structure is flexible enough to scale up or down depending on your process.
Yes. The checklist is fully customizable, allowing you to tailor tasks and stages based on the industry, buyer expectations, or internal review process. Many teams adjust sections to reflect regulatory requirements, security questionnaires, or procurement-specific steps.
You can find additional RFP templates, checklists, and response resources in Loopio’s resource library. Our resources are designed to support different stages of the RFP process, from planning and content development to reviews and final submission.
