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Deal pipeline

Updated

Overview

The deal pipeline is a visual board that shows every open opportunity your team is working on, organized by stage. It gives you a quick read of where revenue is in your sales process at any given moment.

How the Pipeline Works

Each pipeline is a named sequence of stages. As a deal progresses, you move it from one stage to the next. Every stage has a default probability (expressed as a percentage) that CRM uses to calculate your weighted pipeline value — so a $10,000 deal at a 50% probability stage contributes $5,000 to your weighted total.

You can have multiple pipelines — for example, one for new business, one for renewals, and one for upsells. Each has its own stages and can be managed independently.

Default Pipeline Stages

When CRM is first set up, a default pipeline is created with these stages:

  1. New — just entered the pipeline; initial contact made.
  2. Qualified — confirmed there is a real need and budget.
  3. Proposal — a quote or proposal has been sent.
  4. Negotiation — working through terms or pricing.
  5. Closed Won — deal signed and accepted.
  6. Closed Lost — decided not to move forward.

Your admin can rename stages, add new ones, remove unused ones, and adjust the default probability for each.

Moving Deals Through Stages

From the pipeline board view: Drag and drop a deal card from its current column to the next stage. The deal updates immediately.

From the deal record: Open the deal and use the Stage dropdown to select the new stage. Save the record.

When you move a deal to a later stage, the probability updates to match that stage's default. You can override the probability manually on the deal record if your situation calls for it.

Closing a Deal as Won

When a deal is ready to close:

  1. Open the deal record.
  2. Change the Stage to Closed Won.
  3. Confirm the final value and close date.
  4. Save.

CRM records the stage change and the close date, and publishes a crm.deal.won event for the rest of the platform. It does not put anything on your renewal calendar — that calendar is built from your contracts, both the contracts PSA holds for the account and the contract records you have saved in CRM, so a renewal appears there because a contract exists, not because a deal closed. Workflow rules fire on the deal events CRM dispatches, which are deal.created and deal.updated: there is no deal.closed_won event, so a rule keyed to one never fires.

Closing a Deal as Lost

  1. Open the deal record.
  2. Change the Stage to Closed Lost.
  3. Select a Lost Reason from the dropdown (e.g., price, no budget, chose competitor, timing).
  4. Save.

Lost reasons feed reporting so you can spot patterns over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I reopen a lost deal?

Yes. Change the Stage back to any active stage and save. The deal re-enters the pipeline.

What is weighted pipeline value?

It is the sum of every open deal's value multiplied by its probability. A weighted total gives you a more realistic revenue forecast than adding up all deal values at face value.

How do I create a new pipeline for a different sales process?

Go to Settings > Pipeline and click New Pipeline. Name it, add the stages you need, and set a probability for each. Your team can then select this pipeline when creating a deal.

Can one deal belong to multiple pipelines?

No. A deal belongs to one pipeline at a time. If the opportunity changes in nature (for example, moves from new business to an upsell), you can change the pipeline on the deal record.

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