Working with Sales Opportunities

Overview

Sales Opportunities are Transactional Documents very similar to Sales Quotes. However rather than being an actual Customer Quotation they represent an opportunity of potential business with a Customer. In particular, the Sales Opportunities can be collated in a a Sales Forecast Document in order to get a view of the current Sales Pipeline.

Associated with s Sales Opportunity is an Opportunity Stage and a related Percentage Probability. The 'stage' signifies at what stage in the sales process the Opportunity currently is. For example, Qualified, Negotiating, Definite etc. The probability is that of the Opportunity actually closing (i.e. the deal being closed) by the specified Close date. Each Opportunity Stage has an associated probability. These probabilities are used to give a weighted sales pipeline figure on the Sales Forecast Document.

In addition there is also a Forecast Status field which signifies if the Sales Person will commit to the business being closed by the 'Close date'. Similarly, the status can be set to 'closed' meaning the deal has been done, or 'omitted' if the Opportunity is not to be part of the Sales Forecast.

Typically, each Sales Person will have a number of Sales Opportunities, each of which is being updates on a regular basis, depending on when the sales meetings are scheduled (weekly, monthly etc). At any point the Sales Manager can run a Sales Forecast and look at the current forecast based on the open Sales Opportunities.

Prerequisites

Using salesorder.com the basics

Entering Line Items

Working with Transactional Documents

Working with Items

Entering and Editing

Creating a New Sales Opportunity

See Creating new Transactions

Sales Opportunity Key Facts

•	Issuing a Sales Opportunity does not affect the associated Customer balance. The Sales Opportunity is similar to the Sales Quote.

•	The Ref # is a unique identifier/number associated with the Document. See Working with Reference numbers (Ref #).

•	The Sales Opportunity has a mandatory Name field. This is to simply keep track of different opportunities, in particular when they are displayed in a List.

•	The Opportunity has a Close date field, which indicates when the Sales Person predicts the business will be closed.

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The Opportunity Stage has an associated probability, and is used to calculate a weighted value of the Opportunity. The probability indicates the likely hood of the business being closed by the Close date. This weighted value is displayed in the Sub Total (Weighted) field. You can configure you own Opportunity Stages and associated probabilities, see Configuring Sales Opportunities

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The Opportunity has a Forecast Status field. This signifies if the Sales Person is Committed to closing the business in this period (subject to the probability described above), or indeed if the business has been Closed in this period. Also the value can be set to Omitted, meaning that the Opportunity will be omitted from the Sales Forecast.

An example of a Sales Opportunity is shown below.

The Sales Opportunity Document

Related tasks and information

Configuring Sales Opportunities

Working with Sales Forecasting

Working with Prospects

Transaction Audit Trail

Working with Memos