Entering an Opportunity - Terms Card
This page describes the fields on the 'Terms' card of the Opportunity record. Please follow the links below for descriptions of the other cards:
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- Date
- Paste Special
Choose date
- The date of the Opportunity: the current date according to the computer's clock will be entered as a default.
- Payment Terms
- Paste Special
Payment Terms setting, Sales/Purchase Ledger
- Default taken from Contact record for the Lead or Customer (Sales Pay. Terms)
- The Payment Term that you enter here will be transferred to any Orders and Invoices raised from the Opportunity. It will ensure that the correct Payment Terms will be printed on Order and Invoice documentation (in the Language of the Lead or Customer if necessary) and, in the case of an Invoice, it will be used to calculate the Due Date. You can also use Payment Terms to configure a system of early settlement discounts.
- Valid Until
- Paste Special
Choose date
- The last date of validity of the Opportunity.
- Usually, no default Valid Until Date is offered. If you would like a default to be offered, specify a number of days in the Default Valid Days field in the Quotation Settings setting. The default Valid Until Date in every new Opportunity will then be Current Date + Valid Until Days.
- Make Contact
- Paste Special
Choose date
- As a reminder, enter the date when you next want to contact the Lead or Customer regarding the Opportunity.
- Alternatively, you can use Activities both to produce daily 'to do' lists and to maintain contact histories. When you generate an Activity from an Opportunity using the 'Workflow Activity' function on the Create menu: the Make Contact Date of the Opportunity will be copied to the Start Date field in the new Activity. This will ensure that follow-up calls are correctly scheduled. The Activity will appear in the Salesman's Task Manager.
- Decision Date
- Paste Special
Choose date
- The date when the Lead or Customer will make or did make their final decision about the Opportunity.
- This field will automatically be set to the current date when you mark the Opportunity as Accepted or Rejected and saved.
- Our Reference
- Use this field if you need to identify the Opportunity by means other than the Opportunity Number. A default will be taken from the Our Ref field on the 'Sales' card of the Person record of the current user. A Reference entered here will be copied to any Orders and Invoices created from the Opportunity.
- Attention
- Paste Special
Contact Persons in Contact register
- Default taken from Contact record for the Lead or Customer (Primary Contact)
- Record here the person for whose attention the Opportunity is to be marked. The 'Paste Special' function will only list Contact Persons belonging to the specified Lead or Customer.
- Reference
- Record here any additional code by which the Opportunity can be identified. This Reference will be copied to any Orders and Invoices that you create from the Opportunity, and from the Invoices to the Reference field in the resulting Nominal Ledger Transactions. When you receive payment against the Invoices, the Reference will be copied to the Reference Number field on flip G of the relevant Receipt row.
- Tags/Objects
- Paste Special
Tag/Object register, Nominal Ledger/System module
- You can assign up to 20 Tags/Objects, separated by commas, to an Opportunity. You might define separate Tags/Objects to represent different departments, cost centres or product types. This provides a flexible method of analysis that you can use in Nominal Ledger reports. Usually the Tags/Objects specified here will represent the Customer and the Salesman.
- In the Nominal Ledger Transactions generated from Invoices eventually resulting from an Opportunity, any Tags/Objects specified here will be assigned as follows:
- By default, they will be assigned to the credit posting to the Sales Account(s), and, if the Invoices will update the stock valuation in the Nominal Ledger, to the Cost of Sales postings.
These assignments will not occur if you are using the Skip Header A/C Objects on Sales and COS A/C option in the Account Usage S/L setting.
- If you are using the Tags/Objects on Debtor Account option in the same setting, these Tags/Objects will be assigned to the debit posting to the Debtor Account.
- If you are using the Tags/Objects on VAT Account option in the same setting ('VAT / Tax' card), they will be assigned to the credit posting(s) to the Output VAT Account(s).
- Any Sales Tags/Objects specified in the Contact record for the Customer will be copied to here as a default, as will any Tag/Object specified in the Person record for the Salesman. Tags/Objects representing the Branch in which the client machine is located will also be copied here, taken from the Sales Tags/Objects field in the Contact record for the Branch. The Branch itself will be copied from the Local Machine setting in the User Settings module and will be visible on the 'Del. Terms' card of the Opportunity.
- Salesman
- Paste Special
Person register, System module and Global User register, Technics module
- Default taken from Contact record for the Lead or Customer, or current user
- Enter the Signature of the Salesman responsible for the Opportunity here. You can enter more than one Signature, separated by commas.
- Once you have converted an Opportunity into an Order or Invoice, there are many reports in the Sales Orders and Sales Ledger modules that can be broken down by Salesman. One is the Bonus, Salesman report, which you can use to calculate commission on Items sold, using the Bonus setting in the Sales Ledger, the Bonus % field on the 'Pricing' card of each Item record or the Bonus field on the 'Sales' card of the Person record. If you specified more than one Salesman, the commission will be divided between them.
- Generating an Activity from the Opportunity using the 'Workflow Activity' function on the Create menu will place a reminder in the Salesman's Task Manager to call the Lead or Customer on the Make Contact Date.
- You can also specify a Salesman or Salesmen in an individual Opportunity row (on flip D). If an Invoice results from the Opportunity, the Bonus, Salesman report will assign any commission for the row in question to the Salesman specified in the row only (i.e. not to the Salesman specified in the header). However, the 'Workflow Activity' function will not create Activities for the row Salesman, and the Opportunity will not be recognised as belonging to the row Salesman by the Limited Access feature.
- This field is also used by the Limited Access feature: please refer to the description of the Sales Group field on the 'Price List' card for details.
- Project
- Paste Special
Project register, Job Costing module (if installed)
- If you are using the Job Costing module, you can enter a Project Number here to signal that the Opportunity is connected to a specific Project. The Customer, Currency and Tags/Objects will be brought in to the Opportunity, and the Salesman in the Project or, if that field is blank, the Project Manager 1 will be brought in to the Salesman field in the Opportunity.
- If you create an Order from an Opportunity that is connected to a Project, you will be able to issue Deliveries from the Order in the usual way, but you will need to raise associated Invoices from the Job Costing module, using the 'Create Project Invoices' Maintenance function.
- Please refer here for more details about connecting Opportunities to Projects.
- Class
- Paste Special
Opportunity Classes setting, CRM module
- Use this field to assign an optional Opportunity Class to the Opportunity. Opportunity Classes allow you to categorise Opportunities for prioritising. One use might be to distinguish those that are open, won or lost.
- You must enter an Opportunity Class if you are using the Require Quotation Class option in the Quotation Settings setting.
- If you are using the Workflow Overview to monitor the progress of Opportunities, you will be able to display the Open Opportunities belonging to each Class in separate columns.
- Probability
- Use this field to record the percentage probability that an Order will result from the Opportunity.
- If you change the Status of the Opportunity to Accepted or create an Order or Invoice from an Opportunity, the Probability will be set to 100%. If you change the Status to Rejected, the Probability will be set to 0%.
- Priority
- You can use this field to grade the importance of each Opportunity. This is for information only.
- Status
- At any time an Opportunity can be in one of three states, as follows:
- Open
- When you first enter an Opportunity, it will be marked as Open.
- Only Open Opportunities will be shown in the Workflow Overview.
- Accepted
- When you and the Lead or Customer agree to go ahead with an Opportunity, you should mark it as Accepted. The Probability will be changed to 100%, and the current date will be placed in the Decision Date field.
- You can have a text (SMS) message sent automatically to the Customer whenever you mark an Opportunity as Accepted and save it, to confirm that you have agreed to proceed with the Opportunity. You can also have a text (SMS) message sent automatically to a responsible member of staff. Please refer to the Contact Quotation Alerts page (for the message to the Lead or Customer) and the Internal Quotation Alerts page (for the message to the member of staff) for details about these features.
- Rejected
- If you or the Lead or Customer decide not to go ahead with an Opportunity, you should mark it as Rejected. The Probability (below) will be changed to 0%, and the current date will be placed in the Decision Date field.
- Closed
- Tick this box when the Opportunity is no longer required.
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The Opportunity register in Standard ERP:
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