Leads, opportunities, and approvals
Track potential customers, move deals through the pipeline, and get quotes approved.
A lead is a person or company that might buy. An opportunity (a deal) is a specific sale you are working on, linked to a company.
Add a lead
Go to Sales → Leads and click +.
Fill in Last name (required), and as needed First name, Company, Job title, Email, Phone, Lead source, Referred by, and Campaign.
Use Assign an account to link the lead to an existing company.
Click Create lead.
Lead statuses are New, In progress, and Completed. The lead page shows the lead's details, Activities, Find Similar, and the History tab.
Add an opportunity
Go to Sales → Opportunities and click +. Or click + on the Opportunities card of a company page.
Fill in Opportunity name (required), Expected close date, Sales type, Sale stage, Budget, Currency, Expected revenue, and Next step.
Choose the Assigned Account and, if needed, a contact and campaign.
Save the form.
Opportunity statuses are Active, Inactive, Pending, and Closed.
The opportunity page
The Overview tab shows the deal's details, then:
- Line items: the products and services in the quote. Click + to open Add Line Item. Pick a product under Product (optional) or type a custom Name, then set Quantity, Unit Price, and a Discount Type (None, Percentage (%), or Fixed Amount). The table shows each Line Total and the Subtotal.
- Activities and Find Similar.
- The deal's companies, contacts, and documents.
The pipeline board
Sales → Dashboard shows active opportunities as cards in columns, one column per sales stage.
- Change the stage: drag a card to another column. You see "Opportunity stage changed".
- Add a deal in a stage: click the plus icon in the column header.
- Mark a deal as lost: click the thumbs-down icon on the card. The deal becomes inactive and moves to the Lost column.
Sales → My Dashboard lists your open tasks, leads, and active opportunities in My Tasks, My Leads, and My Opportunities.
Quote approval
Before a quote or statement of work goes to a client, a manager or admin can sign it off.
On the opportunity page, click Request approval. All active managers and admins get an email.
The deal shows an Approval pending badge.
After the decision you get an email, and the badge changes to Approved or Rejected. Hover over Rejected to read the reviewer's note.
After a rejection, fix the quote and click Request approval again.
If your admin has marked a sales stage as the quote stage, you cannot move a deal into that stage until its quote is approved. You see "Quote approval is required before moving this deal to the Qualified stage."
Approve or reject (managers and admins)
Go to Sales → Approvals. The Quote approvals page lists deals waiting for a decision, with Deal, Account, Rep, Budget, and Requested.
- Click Approve to approve the quote.
- Click Reject, write what needs to change in the dialog, and click Reject quote. The note goes to the rep by email.
Automatic follow-up
Your admin can link sales stages to automatic follow-up. When that is set up:
- Follow-up tasks: moving a deal into the quote stage, or into a care stage after delivery, creates follow-up tasks for the deal's owner on a schedule. Moving the deal to another stage cancels the remaining ones.
- Closing silent deals: a deal in the quote stage with no client activity for a set number of days (45 by default) is closed, and the owner gets an email. An activity logged on the deal, or a synced incoming email linked to the deal's contact or company, resets the clock.
Independent of stages, NextCRM checks once a week for contracts and assigned products whose renewal date is coming up (within 30 days by default) and creates a renewal task for them.
Automatic tasks are assigned to the owner of the deal, contract, or company, who also gets an email. They appear in the Tasks card of the linked company. Ask your admin which stages are linked.