A big part of any CRM system is the ability to see your current sales pipeline and forecast your expected revenue based on where in your sales process a Deal is. Zoho CRM, with its nearly endless customization options, helps you set stages that make sense for your company, and assign forecasted percentages of the deal amount to effectively manage your pipeline. This is called Zoho CRM stage probability mapping. Let’s see how it works!
How to Use Zoho CRM Stage Probability Mapping
The first thing you’ll want to do is make a plan. What are the steps through which each deal uses? What is the likelihood of winning each deal based on where in the process that deal is? Are there additional steps to walk through after a deal is won? While you can always fine tune your customization down the road it’s best to think about your business processes beforehand
Navigate to Setup > Customization > Modules and Fields. Hover your cursor over the Deals module, then select Stage-Probability Mapping from the drop-down menu. This will open a dialogue box to edit your values. There are four parts to stage probability mapping:
- Stage name
- Pipeline inclusion
- Probability
- Forecast type
The stage name should be your nomenclature to match your processes. The pipeline inclusion simply means is this dollar amount to be included in your pipeline, omitted, or closed. As a general rule stages are omitted if that revenue should not be part of your pipeline, such as when you’ve lost the deal. The percentage correlates to how likely it is that you’ll win the deal. The Forecast type indicates if the deal is open – you haven’t won or lost it yet – or closed lost / closed open. Similar to a picklist, use the + / – signs to add or delete values, and drag and drop to reorder.
Once configured, your values will determine the amount in your sales pipeline. In the example above, if the value of a deal is $100 and is in the Qualification stage, I will show a current projected pipeline value of $10. It’s easy to forecast your revenues with the right stages and percentages in place!
Stay tuned for more next time. And don’t forget to check out our Zoho Training Video library on our YouTube channel for more assistance with Zoho CRM and many other Zoho products! Feel free to contact us at info@marksgroup.net with any questions or if you need Zoho support. Feel free to comment below. We’d love to hear your thoughts!
