Working with Prospects

Overview

Prospects represent potential Customers that you may wish to attach Contacts or issue Quotes/Estimates, or even attach Sales Opportunities so that you can generate more accurate Sales Forecasts and Cash Flow Forecasts.

In terms of its associated fields the Prospect is very similar to the Customer Document.

NOTE: You cannot create any posting Document , such as a Sales Invoice, from a Prospect. To do this you must first convert the Prospect to a Customer.

Prerequisites

Using salesorder.com the basics

Leads, Prospects and Customers

Entering and Editing

Creating a new Prospect

To create a new Prospect either use the Prospects Shortcut, or from the Explorer click Sales->Prospects and click 'New Prospect' from the Prospect List.

Prospect Key Facts

•	The Prospect name must be entered, but it does not have to be unique.

•	The Ref # is a unique identifier/number associated with the Prospect. This can be thought of as the Prospect/Customer account number. See Working with Reference numbers (Ref #) for more details.

•	Once the Currency is set it cannot be changed. Moreover all transactions for the Prospect will be in the selected currency.

•	If the Prospect is VAT registered and a member of the EU remember to check the the 'Member of EU (Not UK)' field in the Profile Tab. This will ensure VAT returns are calculated correctly for trading with EU Customers.

Using the Prospect Document

•	Once the Prospect is created you can perform associated tasks such as creating Quotes and Sales Opportunities etc. by using the Customer's Action Bar.

•	You can also find any associated Documents by using the 'Find' drop-down on the Action Bar.

•	You can use the 'Transactions' Tab to list/find any associated transactions such as Quotes etc.

•	Useful tip: The Transactions,Contacts and Memos tabs can all be used when the Prospect has been popped up in its own window using .

Some fields are worth noting:

Status

Different companies have different ways of processing Prospects/Leads. The Prospect Status defines the various stages that a Prospect can be in depending on your process. Typically ranging from Pre-Qualification to either Converted to Customer or Discarded.

Rating and Rating Score

Sometimes it is desirable to be able to rate a Prospect. In simple terms this could be Cold, Warm Hot etc. depending on how close the Prospect is to becoming a fully fledged Customer. Moreover associated with each rating you may wish to define a numerical score. This gives a more tangible and formal method of categorizing Prospects within your company. You can configure as many Prospect/Lead Rating's and associated scores as you like, see Configuring Leads.

Source

This field simply states the source where the Prospect originated. For example, Word of mouth, Conference, Times Newspaper etc.

Campaign

This field identifies the marketing campaign associated with this Prospect.

Related tasks and information

Leads, Prospects and Customers

Configuring Prospects

Working with Sales Quotes

Working with Sales Opportunities

Working with Jobs

Working with Contacts