The Opportunities module in the CRM tracks all your potential sales and closed deals. This allows you to prioritize your sales efforts and provides visibility into your sales pipeline. You can create quotations from your opportunities and send these directly to your customer from the CRM.
Opportunities represent the sales deals you aim to win. Each opportunity has a monetary value, a close date, and a probability of success shown as a percentage. Once you create an opportunity, it will appear in the widgets on your Sales Dashboard, such as in the sales funnel and the Opportunities and Forecast Summary table. Opportunities can also be reported on in your Sales Forecast Reports.
On this page you have the following options:
Overview Opportunities
The Opportunities module enables you to track all potential sales and closed deals. It helps prioritize sales efforts and offers visibility of the sales pipeline. Opportunities are essential sales deals you aim to close, each with a value, close date, and probability of success represented as a percentage. Once created, opportunities are reflected in the Sales Dashboard, including in the sales funnel and Opportunities and Forecast Summary table. They can also be incorporated into Sales Forecast Reports.
Detailed opportunity view
When you click on an opportunity name, you are taken to the detailed view of that specific opportunity. In this view, you will find the following sections:
- Details – The details you added when creating the new opportunity, including Opportunity Name, Close Date, Status, and other relevant information.
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Opportunity Lines – Opportunities can be broken down into multiple lines, each containing a Quantity, Product Name, and Unit Price. Saving the opportunity will total the lines, showing the overall value of the deal. You can create custom lines using Custom Dropdown Lists, whether for top-level quotations or for individual products.
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Quotations – Displays the related quotations created in the Quotations module.
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Opportunity History – The opportunity history is generated when changes are made to an opportunity. It logs any alterations, such as changes to the Close Date, Status, Probability, Forecast Status, and Value. It also records which user made the change and when. If a user makes multiple changes within two hours, only the final change is saved. The CRM Opportunity History is deleted when the Opportunity itself is deleted. There is also a CRM Opportunity History Reporting feature, which allows you to report on all opportunities that have been modified within a given time period.
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Opportunity Documents – Upload documents from your computer that are related to this opportunity.
New Opportunity
To create a new opportunity, open the Company Account, scroll down to the Opportunities section, and click the + Add button. You can also add an opportunity by clicking the + Add button on the Opportunities Summary table and searching for the relevant customer account.
Complete the fields on the Opportunity form and save it. By setting the Probability and adding the sale value in the Opportunity Lines, your opportunity will appear in the Sales Funnel and Summary on your dashboard.
Add an Opportunity to an Account
Fields on the Opportunity form:
- Opportunity Name – A name for the opportunity. It defaults to the name of the Account, but you may prefer another name like ‘CRM Upgrade’ or an order number.
- Close Date – The date you expect the opportunity to close, i.e., be completed/won.
- Status – Your Sales Stage. Sales Stages can be customized in the Dropdown List called OpportunityStatus.
- Next Step – A free text field where you can note what needs to be done next (e.g., set up a meeting).
- Forecast – Decide whether or not to include the opportunity in your Sales Forecast reports. This list can be modified by editing the OpportunityForecast Dropdown List.
- Probability – The probability (percentage chance) of winning the deal. This can be updated as the opportunity progresses through the sales pipeline. More information on Probability.
- Competitor – A free text field where you can enter the name of the main competitor, if known.
- Source – Defaults to the Account Source (how the customer learned about your business), but can be changed.
- Loss Reason – If the opportunity is lost, record the reason for future analysis. This is driven by the LossReason Dropdown List.
- Description – A free text space for notes regarding the opportunity.
- Win/Loss Report – Space to describe the outcome of the deal after it is won or lost.
Opportunity Probability
The opportunity probability is the estimated percentage chance that a sales deal will be won. Assigning a probability to each sales opportunity allows you to create a weighted sales forecast, giving you a fairly accurate idea of your potential sales.
If an opportunity is won, you can assign it a 100% probability. If the opportunity is lost, the probability is 0%. For opportunities still in the sales process, the probability lies between 1% and 99%.
- Won Opportunity – 100% Probability
- Lost Opportunity – 0% Probability
- Pipeline Opportunity – 1% to 99% Probability
As your opportunity progresses through the pipeline, you can update the probability. For instance, once qualified, you may set the probability to 50%, and later change it to 100% once the sale is confirmed.
Opportunity Weightings
To forecast sales, multiply the opportunity's value by its probability to get the Weighted Value. The opportunity's unweighted value is simply the total sale value. By adding the weighted values of all opportunities, you get a statistically valid forecast of your potential sales.
Calculating Sales Weightings
For example, if an opportunity is worth 10k with a 40% probability of closing, the unweighted value is 10k, and the weighted value is 4k (10k x 40%).
The sum of all unweighted opportunity values gives the total value of your sales pipeline, while the sum of the weighted values provides the likely actual sales figure. This approach is more accurate with many opportunities of similar value, but it may be less reliable if there are a few very large opportunities.