Enquiries, clients and proposals
How Contacts, the Pipeline and Proposals fit together in the CRM, and who can do what.
The CRM keeps your studio's directory of clients, suppliers and contractors, tracks new enquiries from first contact to won or lost, and holds the fee proposals you prepare.
The three areas
- Contacts: everyone your studio deals with. Each contact is a Client, a Supplier or a Contractor. The same records are used across projects, invoices and purchase orders, and they decide who can sign in to the client and contractor portals.
- Pipeline: your enquiries (leads) on a board with six stages: New, Qualified, Proposal, Negotiation, Won and Lost.
- Proposals: fee proposals with a scope of work, terms and priced line items.
Who can do what
| View | Add and edit | Delete | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Admin | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Manager | Yes | Yes | No |
| Member | Yes | No | No |
An admin can change these in Settings > Roles & permissions.
Good to know
- A contact's Stage (New, Active, Qualified, Negotiation) is a label on the contact. It isn't linked to the Pipeline.
- A lead isn't a contact. You start a lead from an existing client contact, but the two are kept separately.
- To give a client access to the client portal, invite them from the project, not from the CRM.
- There is no import or export of contacts, and no tags or merging. If you're moving from another tool, see Moving to Techstyles.