FreeAgent CRM is completely customizable and this includes the different Sales Stages that exist within your Sales pipeline, but not only that, since you can create your own Stage type field, you can have stages in all your Apps.
Edition Qualifier: This feature is available in all FreeAgent Editions.
User Permissions: Only administrators can customize Sales Stages.
In this tutorial, we will cover the following topics:
- Define your Stages
- Navigate to Stages
- Create Stages
- Edit Stages
- Delete Stages
- Delete your Stage field
Define your Stages
You can get started with the predefined Sales Stages or customize them to fit your current Sales process. FreeAgent CRM already includes a set of predefined Sales Stages but you can always create new ones, update existing ones, or delete those that are not useful for you and your team. It is really easy as they are similar to the choices of the Choice List field type.
Defining your Sales Stages is really important as it will allow you to know how likely it is for you or for a team member to close a deal, identify those deals that need a bit more work or those that are pretty much closed.
You have the option to create relationships between your Sales Stages and other fields, like Win Probability and Status, so that when your deal moves from one stage to the next, those values are updated as well.
Basically, when you update a deal's sales stage, those fields you have added in the Dependent fields section will be updated to the values you configured for that sales stage.
Navigate to the Stage Field
Open the menu and go to 'Admin Settings' to display the available options, then click App Setup. Then select your desired app and click on 'Form Fields'. You can also use the search function to get there faster, just start typing 'Form Fields'.
Note: Each App can only have one Stage Field.
Create a New Stage
FreeAgent CRM comes with a set of predefined Sales Stages designed to help you set up your account faster.
To create a new Sales Stage for all apps except leads and deals, click on the 'Add Field' button. For leads and deals, it already exists, therefore you will need to jump to the 'Edit Stages' section of this tutorial.
Give your new field a name, choose the desired section for the field, and select 'Stage' as the type. You can make this field required. If desired, you can enable the 'Lock after Create' feature to prevent that field from being edited after the record is created.
Once you are done, click the 'Save' button. This will create the field, now let's add in the actual stages.
Add Stages
Select your 'Stage' field by clicking on the circle right next to its name, and then click the 'Edit' button.
Click the 'Add Stage' button to display the Stage creation window. You can add as many stages as you need.
To create a simple Stage, just add in its name, and if you want to have them in a specific order, change the Order number. You can also assign an Icon and a Color for your Stage. The color you select here will be used in the charts.
Here you can also add dependent fields for your Stages. first select your field from those available on the list and then set the value for the field. When the Stage of the record changes, so will do the dependent fields to the values you specify here.
Once you are done setting your Stage click the 'Save' button and proceed to create the next Stage. As soon as you have all the Stages you need, click the 'Save' button and your Stage type field will be ready to use.
Edit Stages
Click on the circle right next to the field of type 'Stage' and then click the 'Edit' button.
Here just select the Stage you would like to edit, by clicking in the circle to the left. Then click the 'Edit' button.
Here you will be able to change your Stage name and its order, remove existing dependencies with other fields, or adding more dependencies if needed. Once you are done with the changes, click the 'Save' button.
Delete Stages
Click on the circle right next to the field of type 'Stage' and then click the 'Edit' button.
Here just select the Stage you would like to delete, by clicking in the circle to the left. Then click the 'Delete' button.
Before you are allowed to proceed, you need to select another Stage. This will update all the existing records that had the Stage you want to delete. Once you have the right Stage, click the 'Delete' button. Then confirm that you want to continue with the delete process.
Delete your Stage Field
If you had already created a Stage type field but you need to create a different one, then you will need to delete the existing one before creating it, since there is a limit of 1 Stage field per app.
Click on the circle right next to the field of type 'Stage' to select it and then click the 'Delete' button.
You will be asked to confirm this process, as it cannot be undone.
Note: Stage field for Leads and Deals can not be deleted.