Deal management
M&A Deal Management Software
Every opportunity, every stage, every next step on one board that thinks the way a deal team does — with the analysis, the documents and the people attached to the deal rather than scattered around it. Stage gates say what has to be true to move on; health and momentum scoring say which deals need attention today.
- £399/month
- Unlimited users and deals
- TrueValue Agent included
- No credit card required
What deal management software is
M&A deal management software is the system of record for a transaction: which opportunities are live, what stage each is at, what has to happen next, who is doing it, and everything that has been said, sent, signed and decided along the way. A sales CRM tracks a lead to a sale; deal management tracks a company to a completion, which is a longer, more evidence-heavy and less linear process.
The difference shows up in what has to hang off the record. A deal carries a valuation and a returns model, a diligence checklist with evidence, a data room, a set of documents at various stages of signature, a list of counterparties whose engagement matters, and a set of conditions that must be met before money moves. A tool that stores only the stage and the next call is a tracker, not a deal management system. See TrueValue vs a generic CRM.
The pipeline
Two stage vocabularies
A buyer-side pipeline from sourced to completed and a sell-side pipeline from prospect to completed, chosen per workspace. Stages are editable; the record of when a deal moved and who moved it is not.
M&A deal pipeline stages explainedStage gates and playbooks
Each stage can require items to be complete before a deal leaves it — an NDA signed, a valuation saved, an approval recorded — and carry a playbook of the work that stage normally involves.
Health and momentum
One versioned health score across the kanban, the deal page and the API, so three surfaces cannot disagree. Momentum reads reply latency, buyer-question tenor, data-room attention and silence after a request, and calls a deal steady, drifting or dying.
Closure forecast
A rubric, not a black box: the deal's place in your own pipeline, moved by momentum, counterparty engagement, stage age against your typical and the expected close date, with a critical path of the stages still to pass.
Approvals and governance
Approval rules by stage or value, deal approvals with a decision trail, bid processes with entries, and an audit log written by database triggers rather than by the app.
Saved views and reporting
Pipeline summary, weighted forecast, stage conversion, team analytics and scheduled reports for the partners who want the book on a Monday morning.
What lives on the deal
Every tab on a deal reads the same record. Nothing is retyped between them.
Financials
The target's accounts read into an income statement, balance sheet, cash flow and working capital, each period labelled with its provenance.
M&A valuation softwareValuation and returns
The five-method valuation, and for acquirers the deal economics: consideration structure, funding plan with lender caps, transaction costs, working capital, covenants, IRR and the maximum price at your hurdle, in up to five named scenarios.
Diligence
The checklist, the request list sent to the counterparty, the responses filed against each item, the evidence and the red flags.
M&A due diligence softwareDocuments and signature
NDAs, offers, IMs, IC memos, envelopes and the executed copies with their certificates.
M&A document managementPeople and conversations
Counterparties, buyers under coverage, the deal team, and every email and note filed on the deal.
M&A CRMPost-close
Earn-outs, escrows, the working-capital peg and its true-up, side letters with dated obligations, and the deal review — the money that stays on the table after completion.
The Agent on the pipeline
The TrueValue Agent reads the same pipeline and acts on it. It reviews every live deal overnight, files findings with the evidence attached, proposes the next stage move when the gate is met and never a skip, chases outstanding diligence, drafts the chase email or the client update, and raises a deal that has gone quiet. Every action it takes leaves a receipt with an undo; every action that would leave the workspace waits for you.
A deal team using the pipeline this way spends its meetings on decisions rather than on reconstructing status. The state of every deal is derived from what has actually happened — documents received, replies sent, items closed — and the morning line on the dashboard says what changed overnight and what needs a person.
A tracker and a system of record
| Stage | Spreadsheet or sales CRM | TrueValue |
|---|---|---|
| Stage | Whatever someone last typed. | Gated on what has to be true, with the move and the mover recorded. |
| Health | A gut feel in the weekly meeting. | A versioned score and a momentum verdict from reply times, attention and silence. |
| The numbers | In a model on someone's laptop. | On the deal, seeded from the accounts, with every input's provenance. |
| Diligence | A separate spreadsheet and an inbox. | A request list the counterparty answers, chased automatically, evidence on each item. |
| Documents | Attachments in email threads. | Drafted from the deal, signed from the deal, filed back to the deal. |
| After completion | A calendar reminder, if anyone set one. | Earn-outs, escrows and obligations tracked to settlement, with the review. |
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from a CRM?
- A CRM manages relationships and a sales pipeline. Deal management manages a transaction: the stages are gated on evidence, the record carries valuations, diligence, documents and signatures, and the process is measured on progress to completion. TrueValue includes an M&A CRM as one part of the deal record.
Can I customise the stages?
- Yes. Each workspace has its own stage list in either the buyer or the adviser vocabulary, with gates and playbooks per stage. The history of every stage change is kept whatever the current stage list is.
Does it handle both buy-side and sell-side work?
- Yes. The workspace runs in buyer mode or adviser mode, which changes the stages, the documents and the copy without changing the underlying data, so a firm that does both can run both.
How does health scoring work?
- One engine scores completeness, activity, stage age and risk into a single figure shown on the kanban card, the deal page and over the API, so the three cannot disagree. Momentum is a separate verdict on the direction of travel, from counterparty behaviour rather than from your own activity.
Is there an approval workflow?
- Yes. Approval rules trigger by stage or value, decisions are recorded with a trail, and the audit log is written by database triggers so no route into a table can skip it.
What about after the deal closes?
- The post-close tab tracks earn-outs with their forecasts, escrows, the working-capital peg and any dispute, side letters with dated obligations, and the closing outcome as the authoritative record of what the deal completed at.
Go deeper
- M&A deal pipeline stages explainedWhat each stage means and what has to be true to leave it.
- LOI vs IOI: what is the difference?What each document commits you to.
- Best M&A deal management softwareAn evaluation framework for the category.
- TrueValue vs a generic CRMWhat a sales CRM cannot model about a deal.
- M&A software vs ExcelWhere the spreadsheet stops working, and where it is still right.
- For M&A advisersEvery mandate from valuation to signature, and a partner view of the whole book.
- For corporate developmentBolt-ons and strategic acquisitions run alongside the day job.
Put your pipeline on one record
Import your deals, drop in the documents, and see the board with the analysis and the next actions attached.