Sales
Deals from first conversation to won or lost, the quotes that price them, and the orders customers agree to.
Use Sales to see what is in your pipeline and what customers have agreed to buy. Sales is early: it covers the basics of a pipeline, and more is coming.
How work moves
A sale moves through three records:
- A deal follows the sale through its status, shown as Stage, from Lead to Won or Lost.
- A quote prices the deal. You send it, and the customer accepts or declines it.
- An order is what the customer agrees to buy. You draft it from the accepted quote and confirm it.
A confirmed order is ready to bill. When Finance is installed, you draft an invoice from the order, which copies its lines. See Finance.
Metrics
Sales adds four metrics under Metrics: Pipeline, Bookings, Deals won, and Win rate. Each is a sum of what your deals record as they move, so you can open the deals behind any number.
What Continual does here
Continual keeps each open deal's health current. It marks a deal Ready when it has an amount, an expected close date, and a contact, and Overdue when its close date has passed.
When you ask, Continual works the pipeline with you:
- Sort out an inbound lead. It finds the lead's company and people first, and adds only what is missing instead of creating duplicates.
- Update a deal after a call. It writes a comment with what was decided and the next step. It changes the deal's Stage only when the comments say so.
- Handle a discount request. It writes the request in a comment on the deal and asks the deal's owner. It never agrees to a discount itself.
- Which deals in Proposal close this month?
- Log my call with Dana at Northwind Health: they want a phased rollout by region.
- Add Pennine Haulage as a lead for a route analytics pilot, about $40,000.
- Westbrook USD asked for a 10% discount. Note it on the deal.
Who can do what
Sales adds one role, Member, which works deals, quotes, and orders, and takes their Actions. Installing Sales gives it to every member of your organization.
Records
Sales keeps three kinds of record. Each page explains how the record works and lists its fields.
A sale to one customer, moving from lead to won or lost.
QuotesAn offer the customer accepts or declines.
OrdersWhat the customer agrees to buy.