Leads and opportunities
Following up enquiries, turning them into customers, and tracking the work you are chasing and what it is worth.
By PrimemgrUpdated How we research and check this
Turn on Leads in Settings → Modules. A lead is someone who has asked about work but is not a customer yet: a phone call, an email, a walk-in, a website enquiry. Requests a customer sends from their customer portal land here too.
Working a lead
Add a lead with a name, a phone number or an email, where it came from and what they want. Move it from New to Contacted to Qualified as you go. When it goes ahead, Make them a customer: if they look like someone already on your books, the matches are shown so you can link the lead to that customer instead of creating a duplicate. If it comes to nothing, close it as lost with the reason, so you can see later why work was lost.
Opportunities
Opportunities, the tab beside Leads, track work a customer might give you and what it is worth. Tick Also open an opportunity for the work when making a lead a customer, or add one directly for an existing customer, with its value and when you expect a decision.
Each opportunity sits in a stage: Qualifying, Quote sent or Deciding. Every column shows its total and its value weighted by how likely it is to go ahead (25%, 50% and 75%), and the top of the board shows what is open, the weighted total, and what was won and lost in the last 90 days. A decision date that has passed is shown as Was due.
Write a quote for this opens a quote for that customer, already linked. When the customer accepts it, the opportunity is marked won by itself. Otherwise mark it won, or say it did not go ahead and why; one closed by mistake can be opened again. Opportunities show values, so only people who can see quotes see them.