¶ CRM Module
¶ Overview
The CRM (Customer Relationship Management) module in Sherkety ERP is your command center for managing the entire customer acquisition journey. From the first inquiry to closing the deal, CRM helps you track every interaction, prioritize opportunities, and forecast revenue with confidence.
Business Value:
- Increase conversion rates by 30% with systematic lead follow-up
- Never miss a sales opportunity with automated activity scheduling
- Forecast revenue accurately with pipeline visibility
- Collaborate effectively across your sales team
- Reduce sales cycle time through structured processes
¶ Getting Started
¶ Prerequisites
Before effectively using the CRM module, ensure you have:
- ✅ Defined sales teams and assigned salespeople
- ✅ Configured lead/opportunity stages for your sales process
- ✅ Set up activity types (calls, meetings, emails)
- ✅ Configured lead sources (website, referral, trade show, etc.)
- ✅ Defined lost reasons for tracking (price, timing, competitor, etc.)
¶ Initial Configuration
¶ 1. Configure CRM Settings
Navigate to CRM → Configuration → Settings
Essential Settings to Enable:
- ✅ Lead Management - Separate leads from opportunities
- ✅ Activities - Schedule follow-up tasks
- ✅ Lead Mining - Generate leads from company databases (if applicable)
- ✅ Recurring Revenue - Track monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
- ✅ Predictive Lead Scoring - Prioritize leads automatically (if available)
¶ 2. Set Up Sales Teams
Path: CRM → Configuration → Sales Teams
Sales teams organize your salesforce and provide team-level visibility.
Steps:
- Click Create
- Enter team name (e.g., "Enterprise Sales", "SMB Sales", "Inside Sales")
- Assign team leader
- Add team members
- Define team target (monthly/quarterly revenue goal)
- Set assignment domain (auto-assign leads matching criteria)
Benefits:
- Automatic lead distribution
- Team-based reporting and dashboards
- Performance tracking and commissions
- Territory management
¶ 3. Configure Pipeline Stages
Path: CRM → Configuration → Stages
Your pipeline stages represent your sales process. Customize them to match your workflow.
Default Stages:
- New - Fresh leads/opportunities
- Qualified - Verified as real potential
- Proposition - Quote sent
- Negotiation - In discussion
- Won - Deal closed successfully
- Lost - Deal lost (with reason)
Customization Tips:
- Add stages specific to your industry (e.g., "Demo Scheduled", "Trial Started")
- Set probability for each stage (New=10%, Qualified=20%, Proposition=40%, etc.)
- Define which stages require specific documents
- Set automated actions for stage changes
¶ Daily Operations
¶ Workflow 1: Capture and Qualify a Lead
Business Scenario: Someone fills out a contact form on your website asking about your products.
¶ Step 1: Create Lead
- Navigate to CRM → Leads → Leads
- Click Create
- Enter lead information:
- Lead Name: "Interested in office furniture"
- Contact Name: John Smith
- Company: ABC Corporation
- Email: john.smith@abc.com
- Phone: +1-555-0123
- Source: Website
- Assign to salesperson (or leave for auto-assignment)
¶ Step 2: Qualify the Lead
Before converting to opportunity, verify this is a real prospect:
Qualification Checklist:
- ✅ Budget: Can they afford your solution?
- ✅ Authority: Is this person a decision-maker?
- ✅ Need: Do they have a genuine business need?
- ✅ Timeline: When are they looking to buy?
In Sherkety ERP:
- Open the lead
- Click Schedule Activity → "Call"
- Make qualification call
- Log notes in the Internal Notes section
- If qualified, click Convert to Opportunity
¶ Step 3: Convert to Opportunity
- Click Convert to Opportunity button
- System asks:
- Convert to Opportunity - Creates new opportunity
- Merge with existing opportunity - If this lead relates to existing deal
- Select Convert to Opportunity
- Choose or create customer record
- Click Create Opportunity
Result: Lead becomes an opportunity in your pipeline, ready for active selling.
¶ Workflow 2: Manage Opportunity Through Pipeline
Business Scenario: You have a qualified opportunity worth $50,000. Move it through your sales process.
¶ Step 1: View Your Pipeline
Navigate to CRM → Sales → My Pipeline
The kanban view shows all your opportunities organized by stage:
Each Card Shows:
- Opportunity name
- Expected revenue
- Customer name
- Probability percentage
- Scheduled activities
¶ Step 2: Update Opportunity Details
- Click on an opportunity card to open
- Update key information:
- Expected Revenue: $50,000
- Probability: 20% (Qualified stage)
- Expected Closing Date: 30 days from now
- Tags: Add tags like "Enterprise", "Urgent", "Hot Lead"
Internal Notes: Document all customer interactions:
- "Customer needs 100 office chairs by Q2"
- "Decision maker: Jane Doe (CEO)"
- "Budget approved, waiting for final specs"
¶ Step 3: Schedule Follow-Up Activities
Never let an opportunity go cold. Schedule your next action:
- Click Schedule Activity
- Select activity type:
- Call - Phone follow-up
- Meeting - In-person or video meeting
- Email - Send information or proposal
- To-Do - Internal task
- Set due date and time
- Add summary (e.g., "Send product catalog")
- Click Schedule
Activity appears on the card and in your activity dashboard.
¶ Step 4: Move Through Stages
As the deal progresses, drag and drop between stages:
Qualified → Proposition:
- Drag opportunity card to "Proposition" column
- Probability auto-updates to 40%
- Schedule activity: "Follow up on proposal"
Proposition → Negotiation:
- Customer requests changes to quote
- Drag to "Negotiation" stage
- Probability: 60%
- Log notes: "Negotiating on delivery timeline"
Negotiation → Won:
- Customer agrees to terms
- Drag to "Won" stage
- System prompts: "Convert to quotation?"
- Click New Quotation
- Sherkety ERP creates sales quotation with customer info pre-filled
- Opportunity marked as Won
- Revenue counted in sales forecast
¶ Workflow 3: Convert Opportunity to Quotation
Business Scenario: Customer is ready to receive a formal quote.
¶ Direct Conversion
- Open opportunity
- Click New Quotation button (in smart buttons)
- System creates quotation with:
- Customer information auto-filled
- Salesperson assigned
- Opportunity linked
- Add products and pricing
- Send quotation (see Sales Module)
When Customer Accepts:
- Quotation confirmed → Sales Order created
- Opportunity auto-marked as "Won"
- Expected revenue becomes actual revenue
- Commission calculated
When Customer Declines:
- Mark opportunity as "Lost"
- Select lost reason (required)
- Analyze lost reasons in reports
¶ Workflow 4: Team Collaboration
Business Scenario: Enterprise deal requires input from multiple team members.
¶ Assign and Transfer
Assign to Team Member:
- Open opportunity
- Click Salesperson dropdown
- Select team member
- They receive notification
Transfer Between Teams:
- Change Sales Team field
- Select new team
- Opportunity appears in their pipeline
¶ Internal Communication
Use Chatter for Communication:
- Scroll to bottom of opportunity form
- Type message in chatter
- @mention team member: "@john can you review pricing?"
- They receive notification
- Entire conversation logged on opportunity
Log Calls and Meetings:
- After customer call, click Log Note
- Enter call summary
- Mark activity as Done
- Creates audit trail
¶ Advanced Features
¶ Lead Scoring and Prioritization
Business Scenario: You receive 100 leads per week. Which ones should you call first?
¶ Manual Prioritization
Use Priority Stars:
- Open lead/opportunity
- Click stars to set priority (1-3 stars)
- High-priority opportunities appear at top of lists
Filter by Priority:
- Navigate to pipeline
- Click Filters → High Priority
- Focus on most important deals
¶ Tag-Based Organization
Create Tags:
- CRM → Configuration → Tags
- Create tags: "Hot Lead", "Enterprise", "Referral", "Trade Show"
- Apply to opportunities
Use Cases:
- "Hot Lead" tag for opportunities showing strong buying signals
- "Enterprise" for large deals requiring special attention
- Filter and report by tag
¶ Sales Forecasting
Business Scenario: Management asks: "What's our expected revenue next quarter?"
¶ Forecast Report
Navigate to CRM → Reporting → Forecast
Report Shows:
- Expected revenue by month
- Breakdown by stage
- Filtered by team or salesperson
Analysis Views:
Graph View:
- Line chart showing revenue trends
- Bar chart comparing teams
- Stacked chart showing pipeline composition
Pivot View:
Pivot Analysis:
- Rows: Sales Team, Salesperson
- Columns: Month, Stage
- Measures: Expected Revenue, Number of Opportunities
- Drill down for details
Probability-Weighted Forecast:
Sherkety ERP calculates realistic forecast using stage probabilities:
- 10 opportunities × $10,000 each = $100,000 total
- Stage: Proposition (40% probability)
- Weighted Forecast: $40,000
This gives more accurate revenue predictions than raw totals.
¶ Automated Actions
Business Scenario: Automatically remind salespeople to follow up on stale opportunities.
¶ Create Automation
- Navigate to Settings → Technical → Automation → Automated Actions
- Click Create
- Configure trigger:
- Model: CRM Lead/Opportunity
- Trigger: Based on Time Condition
- Condition: Last activity date > 7 days ago
- Action: Send Email or Create Activity
- Email Template: "Follow up needed on {opportunity.name}"
- Save
Result: Salespeople receive automated reminders for opportunities without recent activity.
¶ Integration Scenarios
¶ CRM ↔ Sales Integration
Workflow: Opportunity won → Quotation → Sales Order → Invoice
How It Works:
- Win Opportunity in CRM
- Click New Quotation
- Quotation created in Sales module with:
- Customer from opportunity
- Salesperson assigned
- Opportunity reference linked
- Send quotation to customer
- Customer accepts
- Confirm Sales Order
- Opportunity automatically marked "Won"
- Actual revenue recorded
Reverse Flow:
- Sales module: Create quotation directly
- Click Create Opportunity (if needed)
- Links quotation to new CRM opportunity
- Tracks deal progress in both modules
¶ CRM ↔ Email Integration
Workflow: Automatic lead creation from emails
Setup (if configured):
- Settings → General Settings → Discuss
- Configure incoming email server
- Create email alias: leads@yourcompany.com
- CRM → Configuration → Teams
- Set team email alias
How It Works:
- Customer sends email to leads@yourcompany.com
- Sherkety ERP creates lead automatically
- Email thread attached to lead
- Salesperson notified
- All email replies logged in chatter
Benefits:
- Never miss an inquiry
- Complete email history
- Automatic assignment to teams
¶ CRM ↔ Calendar Integration
Workflow: Sync CRM activities with calendar
Activities Sync:
- Scheduled meetings appear in user calendar
- Calendar events can create CRM activities
- Reminders sent before meetings
- Team calendars show all activities
Use Case:
- Schedule customer meeting in CRM
- Appears in Outlook/Google Calendar (if synced)
- Reminder 15 minutes before
- After meeting, mark activity done in CRM
¶ Reporting & Analysis
¶ Standard Reports
¶ Pipeline Analysis
Path: CRM → Reporting → Pipeline
Insights:
- Total pipeline value by stage
- Number of opportunities per stage
- Average deal size
- Pipeline velocity (time to close)
Actions:
- Identify bottlenecks (too many stuck in one stage)
- Forecast revenue
- Allocate resources
¶ Activities Analysis
Path: CRM → Reporting → Activities
Metrics:
- Planned vs completed activities
- Activities per salesperson
- Activity types breakdown
- Overdue activities
Use Cases:
- Ensure team is actively engaging prospects
- Identify salespeople who need coaching
- Optimize activity planning
¶ Win/Loss Analysis
Path: CRM → Reporting → Opportunities**
Filter by:
- Won opportunities - Analyze what worked
- Lost opportunities - Learn from failures
Key Metrics:
- Win rate by salesperson
- Win rate by team
- Lost reasons frequency
- Average days to close
Insights:
- If "Price" is #1 lost reason → Review pricing strategy
- If "Competitor" → Improve value proposition
- If low win rate → More training or better qualification
¶ Custom Reporting
¶ Create Custom Pipeline Report
Scenario: Monthly pipeline review meeting - need current status.
- Navigate to CRM → Sales → Pipeline
- Switch to List View
- Click Group By → Stage
- Click ⋮ → Export to Excel
- Share with management
Or Create Saved Filter:
- Apply filters: Team, Date Range, Stage
- Click Favorites → Save current search
- Name: "Monthly Pipeline Review"
- Reuse monthly
¶ Best Practices
¶ ✅ Lead Management
Respond Quickly
- Contact new leads within 1 hour
- Research shows 78% conversion rate if contacted in 1 hour vs 7% if contacted after 24 hours
- Use Sherkety ERP mobile app for immediate response
Qualify Ruthlessly
- Not every lead deserves sales effort
- Use BANT framework (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline)
- Convert only qualified leads to opportunities
- Archive or delete unqualified leads
Track Lead Sources
- Always set lead source (website, referral, trade show)
- Analyze which sources convert best
- Allocate marketing budget accordingly
- Benefit: Focus on high-ROI channels
¶ ✅ Opportunity Management
Keep Pipeline Clean
- Update stages weekly minimum
- Archive lost opportunities (don't delete - learn from them)
- Set realistic expected close dates
- Remove stale opportunities (90+ days inactive)
Accurate Probability
- Use stage-based probabilities
- Adjust manually only for special cases
- Conservative estimates better than optimistic
- Benefit: Accurate revenue forecasts
Document Everything
- Log every customer interaction in chatter
- Note objections and how you handled them
- Record competitor mentions
- Benefit: Team can pick up where you left off
¶ ✅ Activity Management
Schedule Next Action Immediately
- After every customer interaction, schedule next action
- Never leave opportunity without next step
- Set specific actions, not generic "follow up"
- Benefit: Systematic process, nothing falls through cracks
Use Activity Types Correctly
- Call - Phone conversations
- Meeting - In-person or video calls
- Email - Written communication
- To-Do - Internal tasks (prepare proposal, research competitor)
Review Daily
- Start each day reviewing today's activities
- Use CRM → Activities → My Activities
- Complete or reschedule overdue items
- Benefit: Stay on top of workload
¶ ✅ Team Collaboration
Use @mentions in Chatter
- Loop in experts: "@technical-team can you review requirements?"
- Notify manager: "@sales-manager need approval for discount"
- Benefit: Right people involved at right time
Standardize Processes
- Document your sales playbook
- Create templates for common scenarios
- Share winning strategies in team meetings
- Benefit: Consistent quality, faster onboarding
Celebrate Wins
- When opportunity marked "Won", team sees notification
- Recognize top performers publicly
- Share lessons from large wins
- Benefit: Motivated team, continuous improvement
¶ Troubleshooting
¶ Issue: Leads Not Auto-Assigning to Team
Symptoms: New leads remain unassigned despite team configuration
Possible Causes:
-
Team assignment rules not configured
- Solution:
- CRM → Configuration → Teams
- Open team
- Set Assignment Domain (e.g., "Country = United States")
- Solution:
-
Lead doesn't match assignment criteria
- Solution: Check lead details match team domain
- Or manually assign
-
Multiple teams match
- Solution: Order teams by priority (drag to reorder)
- First matching team gets the lead
¶ Issue: Cannot Convert Lead to Opportunity
Symptoms: "Convert to Opportunity" button disabled or not visible
Possible Causes:
-
Already converted
- Check if opportunity already exists
- Solution: Search opportunities for customer name
-
Missing required fields
- Solution: Fill in:
- Contact Name or Company Name
- Email or Phone
- Then retry conversion
- Solution: Fill in:
-
User permissions
- Solution: Check user has CRM Manager rights
¶ Issue: Lost Opportunities Not Showing in Reports
Symptoms: Win rate looks artificially high
Possible Causes:
-
Filter excluding lost opportunities
- Solution: Remove "Active" filter
- Include archived records
-
Lost opportunities not archived correctly
- Solution: When marking lost:
- Select Lost Reason (required)
- Click Archive (don't delete)
- Solution: When marking lost:
¶ Issue: Revenue Forecast Inaccurate
Symptoms: Forecast doesn't match reality
Possible Causes:
-
Stage probabilities too optimistic
- Solution: Review historical win rates by stage
- Adjust stage probabilities to match reality
-
Old opportunities not cleaned up
- Solution: Archive opportunities older than 90 days with no activity
-
Expected close dates not updated
- Solution: Weekly pipeline review
- Update close dates based on customer feedback
¶ Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What's the difference between a Lead and an Opportunity?
A:
- Lead: Unqualified inquiry. You don't know yet if it's a real sales possibility.
- Opportunity: Qualified prospect actively in your sales process with expected revenue and close date.
Workflow: Capture as Lead → Qualify → Convert to Opportunity → Sell
When to use only Opportunities: If all your inquiries are pre-qualified (e.g., inbound from paid advertising), skip leads and create opportunities directly.
Q: Can I have multiple opportunities for one customer?
A: Yes, absolutely. A customer can have:
- Multiple simultaneous opportunities (e.g., "Office Furniture Deal" and "IT Equipment Deal")
- Sequential opportunities (e.g., initial purchase, then expansion)
Each opportunity tracks separately with its own pipeline, activities, and revenue.
Q: How do I handle long sales cycles (6+ months)?
A:
- Break into smaller milestones (use stages creatively)
- Schedule regular check-in activities (monthly minimum)
- Document all interactions in chatter
- Adjust expected close date as you learn more
- Update probability conservatively
Tip: Create custom stages for long cycles (e.g., "Pilot Project", "Board Approval Pending")
Q: Can I reassign opportunities to another salesperson?
A: Yes:
- Open opportunity
- Change Salesperson field
- Original salesperson sees it disappear from their pipeline
- New salesperson sees it appear in theirs
- All history preserved in chatter
Use Case: Territory changes, vacation coverage, or escalation to senior closer.
Q: What happens to opportunity when quotation is sent?
A:
- Opportunity remains open in pipeline
- Smart button shows "Quotations: 1"
- When quotation confirmed → Opportunity can be marked "Won"
- Revenue tracked in both CRM and Sales modules
- Lost quotation → Opportunity can be marked "Lost"
Automatic workflow: Some configurations auto-update opportunity stage when quotation sent.
Q: How do I set sales targets and track performance?
A:
- CRM → Configuration → Sales Teams
- Open team
- Set Monthly Target (e.g., $100,000)
- Dashboard shows:
- Target vs Actual
- Progress bar
- Individual salesperson performance
Reporting:
- CRM → Reporting → Salesperson
- Compare actual revenue to targets
- Identify top and bottom performers
¶ Related Modules
- Sales - Convert opportunities to quotations and orders
- Contacts - Manage customer and company information
- Email Marketing - Send campaigns to leads (if installed)
- Website - Capture leads from contact forms (if installed)
- Calendar - Schedule meetings and sync activities
¶ Keyboard Shortcuts
Alt + C- Create new recordAlt + E- Edit current recordAlt + S- SaveEsc- Discard changes/- Global searchCtrl + K- Command palette (quick actions)
¶ Video Tutorials
(Coming soon)
- CRM Quick Start (5 min)
- Lead to Opportunity Workflow (8 min)
- Pipeline Management Best Practices (10 min)
- Sales Forecasting and Reporting (7 min)
¶ Glossary
Lead - Initial inquiry or contact before qualification. May or may not become a sales opportunity.
Opportunity - Qualified sales prospect with expected revenue, close date, and active sales process.
Pipeline - Visual representation of all opportunities organized by sales stage (New, Qualified, Proposition, etc.).
Stage - Step in your sales process (e.g., "Qualified", "Proposition", "Negotiation"). Each stage has a probability percentage.
Activity - Scheduled task related to a lead/opportunity (call, meeting, email, to-do). Ensures systematic follow-up.
Win Rate - Percentage of opportunities that close successfully. Calculated as: (Won Opportunities / Total Closed Opportunities) × 100.
Lost Reason - Why a deal was lost (price, timing, competitor, etc.). Critical for continuous improvement.
Expected Revenue - Estimated value if opportunity closes. Used for forecasting.
Probability - Likelihood of closing (typically tied to stage). 10% = early stage, 90% = near certain.
Sales Team - Group of salespeople with shared pipeline, targets, and territory/domain rules.
Chatter - Communication thread on each record. Logs all interactions, notes, and mentions.
BANT - Qualification framework: Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline. Determines if lead is worth pursuing.