Sales overview

Sales covers everything from a first conversation to signed work. You track deals on a pipeline, price a quote in the builder from your catalogue, and send it as a quick quote or as a block-built proposal the customer reads as a web page (after approval, if it needs it). The customer accepts it online with an e-signature and, if you ask, a deposit. Acceptance then does the admin for you: recurring items go onto the customer's contract, one-off work becomes a project, a lead becomes a customer, and the work is ready to invoice.

How it fits together#

1. Opportunity: a deal on your pipeline, from first conversation to won or lost. See Opportunities and pipelines.
2. Catalogue: the products, services, licences and labour you sell, with cost, price and billing. See The catalogue.
3. Quote: built from catalogue lines or typed in, in sections, with optional extras and discounts. See Building a quote.
4. Proposal: when you want to sell rather than just price, build the quote into a branded web page with packages, quantity choices, your content library and online signing by several people. See Building a proposal and Proposal pricing, signing and tracking.
5. Approve: quotes over a value, under a margin or with a big discount, and proposals with changed legal wording or terms, wait for an approver. See Quote approval.
6. Send: email a link, publish to the customer portal, or both. See Sending a quote and versions.
7. Follow up: reminders go out by themselves, the customer asks questions on the page, and you record answers that come by phone or post. See Quote follow-up, alternatives and prices.
8. Accept: the customer picks the options they want, signs and pays any deposit. See Acceptance and what happens next.

Around the deals sits a CRM (MSP edition): every call, meeting, email, note and task on one timeline per lead, contact, customer and deal, and My sales day listing what is due. Salespeople connect their own Microsoft 365 mailbox so their emails land on the right timelines (My mailbox and sales email), leads are scored and shared out by rules (Lead scoring, assignment and the board), and sequences follow up until someone replies. Marketing keeps consent, lists and attribution (Marketing: consent, lists and attribution) and sends newsletters. Account management suggests opportunities from what Tenvara already knows about your customers, and the forecast and sales reports show what the pipeline should bring in. Salespeople who live in Outlook can use the Outlook add-in.

Once a month, commission statements are worked out from what each person sold.

After the sale, regular business reviews keep a recommendations register, roadmap and budget for each customer, which feed the next quotes.

Quotes can be for an existing customer or for a lead. See Leads.

Where to find it#

Open Sales and billing from the rail. Its sidebar has six groups, each of which folds away:

• Sales: Quotes (with an Awaiting approval tab), Proposals (with Proposal templates and Content library tabs), Opportunities (with a Forecast tab), My sales day, My mailbox, Leads, Account management (with Suggested, Whitespace and Account plans tabs), Marketing (with Lists, Newsletters, Attribution and Suppression list tabs), Sequences, Catalogue (with a Distributor prices tab), Commission (with a Plans tab) and Testimonials.
• Billing: Invoices, Invoice runs, Time to bill, Deferred revenue and On stop. See Invoicing and payments.
• Contracts: Contracts, Renewals, Prepaid hours, Billable units and Price uplifts. See Contracts and invoicing.
• Subscriptions: Licences, which have their own section. See Licences and billing.
• Call billing: Call records, Call rating, Call charges, Call usage and Rate cards, when you have the Telephony and connectivity module. See Telephony and connectivity.
• Purchasing: Purchase orders, Supplier invoices, Stock, Suppliers and Supplier contracts. See Procurement and stock and Supplier contracts.

Sales and billing settings at the foot of the sidebar opens Settings > Sales. The numbers beside the entries count what needs someone, such as open opportunities and leads.

Note: Sales and billing needs the Tickets module, which every install starts with. The CRM pages (My sales day, My mailbox, Account management, Marketing and Sequences) and the Outlook add-in are part of the MSP edition.

The quote list#

Sales and billing > Quotes opens on what needs doing: every open quote at any age (drafts, awaiting approval, sent and viewed), plus the quotes accepted in the last 30 days, each saying who accepted it and when. Views has Drafts, Awaiting approval, Sent and waiting, Accepted, Not won (declined, expired and withdrawn), Closed (every decided quote, newest decision first), All quotes, Expiring in 7 days and Not opened, and the Awaiting approval tab holds the quotes waiting for an approver. Nothing is ever deleted: the Status filter reaches any quote at any age.

The line under the title tells you how many quotes are waiting on customers and what they are worth in the first year before VAT. Each row shows:

• the quote number (Q-1001 upwards, never reused) and title, with the version when it has more than one and an Editing badge when a new version is being worked on;
• who it is For (a customer, or a lead with the lead icon);
• the Status;
• the One-off and Monthly amounts before VAT;
• the Margin, staff only. A quote with lines that have no cost shows the margin over the lines that do, with an amber mark saying how many it leaves out, or Unknown when no line has a cost;
• the Owner and Valid until date.

Filter by recipient, status, owner, amounts, valid until, sent date, follow-up and the customer's purchase order, search, and save views. The line under the table totals what is showing. Select several quotes to mark them lost or extend their expiry at once.

The quote list shows plain quotes. Proposals have their own list under Sales and billing > Proposals, with engagement signals; the customer's Quotes tab, search and the portal show both.

Quote statuses#

You can rename these statuses in Settings > Proposals under Quote statuses, for example "With the client" for Sent; your names show in the quote list, on the quote and in the portal.

Sent and viewed quotes expire automatically the night after their valid until date, and their links stop working at the same time. Accepted, declined and withdrawn are final: duplicate the quote to quote again. A quote can also be marked lost, with a reason and the competitor, when the customer tells you another way.

The quote's owner is notified in the bell when the customer views, accepts or declines it (a view once for each version sent), asks a question or forwards it to a colleague, and before an unopened quote is forgotten or expires.

Where quotes show up#

• Customers: open the customer, choose Commercial, then Quotes. The tab lists the customer's quotes with what is waiting on them, accepted, drafts and declined or expired, a signed PDF for accepted ones, and a New quote button. The customer's deals and sales timeline are on the Sales tab beside it.
• Leads: each lead lists its opportunities and quotes and has New quote.
• Opportunities: each opportunity lists its quotes and has New quote, filled in from the opportunity.
• Tickets: raise a quote from a ticket's menu. The quote shows the ticket it came from, and the ticket gets a note when the quote is accepted.
• Search (Cmd+K or Ctrl+K): find quotes by number or title, and start a new quote.

A declined quote or proposal can also be recorded as the customer's own decision with a signed customer sign-off.

Permissions#

Quotes, proposals, leads and the catalogue have View and Manage permissions in Roles and permissions: view to see them, manage to create, edit and send. Separate actions cover proposal templates and the content library, locking content, everyone's proposal engagement, and commission; all are for administrators unless you give them to others. Settings > Proposals (templates, quote settings, quote status names and the acceptance rules) is for administrators.

Settings > Sales shapes the pipeline: pipelines, stages, sources, statuses, reasons, targets, lead scoring and assignment. Administrators and anyone with the Manage sales settings action change it; the action is on in the Sales and account manager role. Quote approval, the enquiry form, marketing consent and the commission settings on the same page stay with administrators.

For bigger sales teams, Who sees which deals in Settings > Sales can limit salespeople to the leads, deals and activities they own, on the board, lists, forecast, reports and search. Administrators and the leads of a Sales or Accounts team (Settings > Teams) still see everything. Business reviews come under the Reports area, and sign-offs have their own Sign-offs permission.

Cost and margin are for staff only. They never appear on anything the customer sees: the proposal page, the PDF, the emails or the customer portal.