This article provides a comprehensive guide on how to create and manage sales opportunities in BigChange's Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Understanding these processes is crucial for effectively managing your sales pipeline and ensuring business growth.

Creating a New Sales Opportunity

To create a new sales opportunity, navigate to CRM from the top menu, then select Sales Opportunities from the side menu. Select "New Sales Opportunity".

Sales Opportunity Details

The Detail tab allows you to enter various information about the sales opportunity, including currency, line items, contact details, status, due date, stage, probability, owner, reference, and notes. Remember to save your changes.

• Add item - this may be appropriate when the item being quoted on is either bespoke or outside of your general provision, free text can be entered.
• Add predefined item - To set up predefined items for a job type navigate: Profile Icon → Admin Settings → [side menu] Financial → Predefined invoicing items.
• Add stock - add in items of stock and equipment

1. Contact - This is a site or customer who is already in your CRM.  When you begin to type, after the first 4 characters are input a drop-down menu of current options will appear.  It is also possible to add in a new contact here by clicking on the '+' icon outlined above to the right of the Contact field.  This will open a popup that allows you to input new customer data.
2. Person - This is the person set up on your CRM as the Primary person you are dealing with at the site/customer for this sales opportunity, for example, the Buyer or the CEO.
3. Subject - The subject your enquiry relates to.
4. Status - The status of the sales opportunity e.g. Open, On hold, Completed won or Completed lost.
5. Due date - This due date of your sales opportunity e.g. When you are due to complete the deal or visit them.
6. Stage - The current stage of your sales opportunity e.g. Quotation sent.  The options available here are those which you input earlier in the back office under Profile Icon → Admin Settings → [side menu] Financial → Sales opportunity stages
7. Probability - The salesperson's estimate of the probability of you clinching this contract e.g. Hot/ 25%. The options available here are those which you input earlier in the back office under Profile Icon → Admin Settings → [side menu] Financial → Sales opportunity probabilities.
8. Owner - The web user who is creating the sales opportunity.
9. Reference - You can add a reference number at any time, allowing it to be searchable by the reference filter in the side menu.
10. Notes - You can add a side note against the sales opportunity or you can create a separate note for this under the Notes tab.  This is a non-mandatory field but is useful for additional storage of information, or saving of tasks to be completed.
11. Custom fields.
12. Save

Managing Documents Related to a Sales Opportunity

The Documents tab allows you to create financial documents such as quotations, invoices, or purchase orders. You can also edit these documents, mark them as sent, assign them to a job, or delete them.

Selecting the "Add" icon will create a document that automatically populates with the line items specified on the Sales opportunities Details tab. 

The fields which display are dependent upon your choice of Document type, as shown in the image below.

Please note, the line items can be edited before creating the document. The example shown is of an invoice:

Once the document is complete and saved, by selecting it, you will be presented with additional options.

1. File - Clicking on this will open a further popup giving you the option to download the financial document into a PDF or email it directly to the customer: 
2. Mark Sent - This allows you to mark the financial document as sent and this date stamps the document.
3. Assign to Job - The financial document can be grouped with a new job so if you are visiting the prospective customer you have the option to associate the financial document with the visit.  This can be done by adding it to an existing job, a new job or by adding a job reference: 
4. Edit - this allows you to edit the financial document should you wish, for example if subsequent negotiations alter the price originally quoted. Documents can no longer be edited once sent so a duplicate or additional document would need to be created in that instance.
5. Delete - Although this option is available it is recommended that these documents not be deleted, as they may be required for future reference and deleting removes them completely from the system.

Making Notes on a Sales Opportunity

The Notes tab acts as a virtual notepad, allowing you to make notes on meetings, visits, customer requirements, and so on. You can also set alerts, attach documents, create emailed notes threads via the @ function, phone or email the customer, etc.

Using Flags and Attachments in a Sales Opportunity

The Flags and Attachments tabs act as repositories for the flags and attachments accumulated during the lifespan of this Sales Opportunity. They provide a quick way to access information on this prospect and ensure that all information is readily available and in order.

Sales Opportunity Tabs

Documents Tab

The Documents tab provides a simple way to create financial documents such as quotations, invoices or purchase orders against your Sales opportunity. If you open the Documents tab it will initially display as empty:

Clicking on the 'Add' icon will create a document that automatically populates with the line items specified on the Sales opportunities Details tab.  The fields which display are dependent upon your choice of Document type, as outlined below. Please note the line items can be edited before creating the document. The example shown is of an invoice:

Once the document is complete and saved, clicking on it to edit will give you additional options:

• File - Clicking on this will open a further popup giving you the option to download the financial document into a PDF or email it directly to the customer: 

• Mark Sent - This allows you to mark the financial document as sent and this date stamps the document.
• Assign to Job - The financial document can be grouped with a new job so if you are visiting the prospective customer you have the option to associate the financial document with the visit.  This can be done by adding it to an existing job, a new job or by adding a job reference: 

• Edit - this allows you to edit the financial document should you wish, for example if subsequent negotiations alter the price originally quoted. Documents can no longer be edited once sent so a duplicate or additional document would need to be created in that instance.
• Delete - Although this option is available it is recommended that these documents not be deleted, as they may be required for future reference and deleting removes them completely from the system.

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Jobs Tab

All jobs already created against this Sales opportunity will appear here and you will also have the option to add additional jobs, this is perfect for storing on site meetings, time spent producing documentation, or saving jobs off the back of a successful sales opportunity:

1. Reference number - this search box is useful for quickly extracting a single job reference where a comprehensive list of jobs have been assigned against a single Sales opportunity
2. This shows a job which has already been allocated to this sales opportunity
3. New job - this allows you to create a job to be attributed to this sales opportunity
4. Import - this allows you to import a job via a Job reference number which is already in the system: 

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Notes Tab

As you might expect, this tab acts as a virtual notepad, allowing you to make notes on meetings, visits, customer requirements and so on.  Unlike physical notepads however, the Notes section is an extremely powerful tool with the capability of interacting with all other parts of the system.  From here you can carry out a number of tasks such as attaching documents, creating emailed notes threads via the @ function, phone or email the customer, etc.

You can also set Alerts, for example as a reminder to call back the customer on a certain day. Some of these options are outlined below: 

The Alert mentioned above can be added via  Alerts on the top menu, followed by 'Create a new alert': 

Another Note function which is extremely useful is the addition of filterable flags. Begin by setting up meaningful Note flag categories by:

• Navigating: Profile Icon → Admin Settings → [Side menu] Contacts & notes → Note flags:

These can then be seen in your Note flags tab in Notes:

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Flags Tab

These 2 sections act as repositories for the flags and attachments accumulated during the lifespan of this Sales Opportunity.

They act as a very quick way to access information on this prospect and ensure that all information is readily available and in order.

 Example Flags Tab

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Attachments Tab

On the Attachments tab, you can drag and drop documents onto the tab or use the Add icon at the bottom of the form.  The system will ask if this is to be visible to Web users, Resources or both before it is uploaded.

All items can be downloaded by selecting the Download All icon at the bottom of the form.