Web Portal for Franchise Candidate Intake & Disclosure — Full-Stack Build

PROJECT OVERVIEW A franchise network is hiring a development partner to build the Pre-Contract Lead Portal, the system that carries a prospective franchisee from first contact through a signed franchise agreement. It replaces a manual, spreadsheet-and-email process with a structured platform that gives our internal teams (Business Development, Finance, Legal, Executive) full pipeline visibility and a clear record of every decision. At its core this is a gated approval workflow. Each of the six phases opens only when a specific condition is met, and several of those conditions come from franchise, privacy and consumer-credit law rather than from product preference. Getting that sequence and its timing right is the substance of the build. Full scope, roles, functional breakdown, integrations and acceptance criteria are in the attached specification. Please read it before applying: it was written specifically to let you size this project without a discovery call. WHAT'S IN SCOPE - Prospect intake and qualification, through conversion to a formal candidate - The full six-phase candidate journey: application, financial review, background and credit screening, franchise disclosure, validation, executive approval, signature, payment - The internal workflow each department uses to move a case forward, including queues, decisions and handoffs - Operational administration: lead ingestion, internal user accounts, document and notification templates, reference and scheduling rosters - A tamper-evident audit trail for every decision and state transition - Jurisdiction-aware behavior across the five launch jurisdictions Out of scope: anything after contract signature, our public marketing site, and ERP/accounting integration beyond payment confirmation. THE RULES THE WORKFLOW HAS TO ENFORCE This is an application and approval workflow, not a banking or payments system. What distinguishes it is a small set of timing and disclosure rules that already govern the business today, with or without this software. They are listed here so you don't have to research franchise law to quote the project. - Franchise disclosure. In Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, and under U.S. federal rules plus certain individual states, a disclosure document must reach the candidate at least 14 days before they can sign or pay anything. The 14-day clock starts when the candidate acknowledges receipt, not when the document was sent. - Credit and background checks. If a candidate is declined on the basis of a background or credit check, U.S. rules require a two-step notice process: a preliminary notice, a waiting period, then a final notice. Canadian provinces apply their own, simpler consent rules to the same step. - Electronic signature. The signed agreement must meet standard Canadian and U.S. e-signature requirements covering signer identity, document integrity, and an accessible copy for the signer. Any mainstream provider (DocuSign, Adobe Sign) already satisfies this. - Personal data. Candidates submit financial and personal information, so standard Canadian and U.S. privacy consent applies. This is the kind of consent flow most teams have already built elsewhere. None of this calls for novel engineering. It comes down to a handful ofdates, consent checkpoints and a notice sequence, applied in the right order.The attached specification shows exactly where each rule attaches to thejourney. WHAT WE'RE EVALUATING PROPOSALS ON - Your price and timeline, read first. A milestone-based estimate grounded in the attached specification carries far more weight than a bare hourly rate. An hourly rate alone won't disqualify you, but a total-cost read tied to the actual scope will always beat it. - Problem understanding. Does your proposal show you read the specification, or could it have been sent to any project in this category? - Track record as a whole. Rating, completed projects and hours billed together, not any single number in isolation. As a starting filter we're prioritizing freelancers and agencies at 4.5 stars or above with a solid completed-project history. If that isn't you but your experience is directly relevant, make the case in your proposal and we'll read it. - Domain experience. A franchising build in your portfolio is a genuine differentiator, since it means you already understand the domain rules. It isn't required. Experience with other regulated, multi-step, audit-heavy workflows counts for the same reason. BEFORE YOU ASK A QUESTION The specification was written to answer what normally comes up before a firmquote can be given: jurisdictions, integrations, ownership boundaries, thenon-functional bar, and acceptance criteria. Please read it first. If something genuinely isn't covered there, ask and we'll gladly clarify. WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR PROPOSAL 1. Your understanding of the core difficulty of this project, in your own words 2. How you'd break the work into milestones 3. Every assumption behind your price, stated explicitly 4. Team composition: roles, seniority, dedication 5. Timeline by milestone 6. Price by milestone, not just a total 7. Relevant past work. Regulated workflow, audit trail, or multi-stakeholder internal tooling all count Presentation and deep-dive calls are scheduled with the shortlist only. A complete written proposal is what gets you there.