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Pipeline & Deals

The Pipeline is where a sale lives before it is an order. Track each deal through its stages, forecast what is likely to close, and convert a deal into a customer, project, and draft order in one step when it is won.

Key capabilities

  • Forecast tiles: Weighted pipeline, Total pipeline, Open deals, and Closing this quarter, plus a split of New customer versus Expansion value
  • Stages: Lead, Discovery, Proposal, Negotiation, then Closed won or Closed lost
  • New deal form with company, contact, sales rep, deal type, revenue type, source, stage, expected value, hours, term, start and close dates, and notes
  • Import deals by pasting rows from a spreadsheet or uploading a CSV, up to 250 rows at a time
  • Filters for stage, New customer or Expansion, and sales rep (including Unassigned), plus search
  • Change a deal's stage straight from the table; stalled deals are highlighted with a warning in the Age column
  • Export CSV of every deal that matches your filters, with all fields
  • A deal drawer with Edit, Mark lost, Reopen, and Create order
  • After conversion, the drawer shows Deal estimate next to Order actual and a deal history timeline

How it works

A deal moves freely between open stages. It ends one of two ways: marked lost (which you can undo), or converted to an order, after which the deal follows that order's status.

flowchart LR
  lead["Lead"] --> discovery["Discovery"]
  discovery --> proposal["Proposal"]
  proposal --> negotiation["Negotiation"]
  negotiation --> create["Create order"]
  create --> won["Closed won"]
  negotiation --> lost["Closed lost"]
  lost -->|"Reopen"| prior["Stage before it was lost"]

How to use it

  1. Open Pipeline and click New deal.
  2. Pick the Company. Choose an existing customer to mark the deal as an expansion, or type a new name to add a prospect. Company and Stage are required; the stage starts at Lead, or Discovery for an existing customer.
  3. Fill in expected value, hours, term, and close date so the forecast is meaningful, then click Create deal.
  4. Move the deal along using the stage dropdown in the table, or open the deal and use Edit to correct details.
  5. To drop a deal, open it and click Mark lost. Choose a reason (Price, Lost to a competitor, Bad timing, No budget, No decision made, Poor fit, or Other) and add an optional note. Reopen brings it back to the stage it was in.
  6. When the customer says yes, open the deal and click Create order. Enter a Project name (it must be unique among that customer's projects) and an optional Order description, then click Create order.
  7. Click Open order on the deal to finish the draft in Sales Orders.

Pro tips

  • The weighted forecast counts each open deal at a share of its value: 10% at Lead, 25% at Discovery, 50% at Proposal, and 75% at Negotiation. Closed deals are not part of the open pipeline.
  • A deal is flagged as stalled once it has sat too long in a stage: 14 days in Lead, 21 in Discovery, 14 in Proposal, or 30 in Negotiation.
  • Use the Columns menu to show Contact, Deal type, Revenue, and Notes, which are hidden by default.
  • Revenue type is either Monthly recurring or One-time prepaid; setting it keeps forecasts honest when two deals have the same value.
  • Converting is one way. The customer, project, and draft order are created together, and if anything fails nothing is created.

In-depth guide

Importing a spreadsheet. Click Import, paste rows copied from Excel or Google Sheets, or choose Upload CSV. The first line is the header and Company is the only required column. Stage, Sales rep, Deal type, Value, Expected close date, Contact, Notes, and Expansion are matched automatically if present, in any casing. Stage accepts Lead, Discovery, Proposal, Negotiation, Closed won, or Closed lost. You see the parsed result before anything is saved, and unrecognized columns are listed as ignored. If some rows are rejected, the rest still import and the sheet is trimmed to only the failed rows so you can fix them and import again without creating duplicates. Imported companies are added as prospects.

What carries over to the order. The draft order is pre-filled with one flat line carrying the deal's expected value (shown as hours at an hourly rate when the deal has expected hours, otherwise a single unit), plus its start date and term. Edit those on the order itself. If the company was a new prospect, a customer is created for it at the same time, using the deal's contact email; existing customers are reused.

After conversion. The Stage column shows a green Closed won badge that links to the order, and the deal is read-only. Manage status from Orders, and send the order for signature from there; see Sales Orders. The finished contract appears in Customer Contracts.

Edits. Edit lets you change sales rep, deal type, revenue type, value, hours, term, start and close dates, and notes. The company stays fixed once the deal exists.