Moving from Opportunities to Quotes
The Dynamics 365 Sales process begins with Leads, which represent potential clients and possible sales. Keeping these prospects as separate Lead records helps prevent them from becoming intermixed with more permanent customer information. Once a Lead has been nurtured and you're more confident that a sale may happen, you can qualify it and create an Opportunity. Dynamics 365 transfers information such as the associated Account, Contact information, and timeline entries into the Opportunity, reducing unnecessary data entry. You can also create an Opportunity from scratch, which may be more appropriate when working with an existing client. When an Opportunity reaches the point where you're ready to propose specific products, quantities, and pricing, the next step is to create a Quote.
Creating a Quote
Creating a Quote from an Opportunity automatically connects the two records. A Quote can contain information such as:
- Products
- Pricing
- Quantities
- Discounts
- Write-in products
- Price list
- Potential customer
Dynamics 365 also provides a Look Up Address option. This allows you to select billing and shipping addresses from the Potential Customer associated with the Opportunity, whether the customer is an Account or Contact.
Understanding Quote Statuses
A newly created Quote begins in Draft status. While the Quote is in Draft status, you can continue editing its information. Once it's ready to present to the customer, you can activate it. Activating a Quote effectively makes it live and prevents it from being edited while the customer reviews it.
Generating and Sending a Quote
Once the Quote has been activated, Dynamics 365 provides different ways to generate a document that can be presented to the customer. One option is to use Run Report and select the Quote report. Dynamics 365 can populate the details from the Quote into a formatted report. The Quote report offers flexibility over the information you include and can be customized around your organization's requirements. Reports can also be saved in formats such as Excel, Word, and PDF, as well as printed or emailed. Another option is Export to PDF. This provides a straightforward way to generate a downloadable or emailable Quote document, but it does not offer the same flexibility to filter or include and exclude details. For greater flexibility in formatting, design, and output options, the Quote report may be preferable.
Revising a Quote
Customers don't always accept the first Quote you send. They may want to adjust quantities, products, pricing, or other aspects of the proposed sale. Dynamics 365 can handle these revisions while preserving the Quote history. When you revise a Quote, the existing version isn't simply overwritten. Instead, Dynamics 365 creates a copy that can be edited. The revision number identifies the new version, while the previous Quote is closed. You can then make the necessary changes and activate the revised Quote before presenting it to the customer. This process can be repeated as necessary:
- Create the Quote.
- Activate and send it to the customer.
- Revise the Quote if changes are requested.
- Activate and send the new version.
- Continue until the customer makes a decision.
Keeping these different versions provides a record of how the proposed sale evolved and which version was ultimately accepted.
Moving from a Quote to an Order
If your organization uses the Orders table within Dynamics 365 CRM, an accepted Quote can become an Order. The relationships maintained throughout the process make it easier to move between the Opportunity, Quote, Order, and Potential Customer. This creates a more complete history of the sale and makes previous steps easier to trace. If your organization doesn't create Orders in CRM, the process may instead move into an accounting or ERP system. Dynamics 365 provides several options for closing a Quote that isn't moving forward, including:
- Lost, when the customer decides against the Quote
- Canceled, such as when an error was made
- Revised, when an activated Quote needs to be changed
Out of the box, closing a Quote as won requires converting it into an Order. This assumes your organization is completing that part of the sales process within CRM. If your organization handles Orders elsewhere, such as in an ERP application, Dynamics 365 can be customized around that process.
Working with Orders
An Order can be generated from an accepted Quote or created independently. Important Order information can include:
- Name
- Price list
- Currency
- Customer
- Products
- Tax
- Pricing
Products can be brought in from the Opportunity or added manually. When an Order is created from a Quote, its pricing is locked. With locked pricing, you can adjust quantities, but you can't overwrite the pricing information on the Order. Orders can eventually be closed with statuses such as:
- Canceled
- Fully fulfilled
- Partially fulfilled
As with Quotes, an Order can't be edited once it has been closed.
What If You Don't See Orders?
Not every organization uses Orders within Dynamics 365. If you don't see them in your CRM application, Orders may not be enabled or included in your organization's custom application. Your organization may also use a different workflow, such as submitting Order information to an ERP application. Security roles can also affect whether a user has access to Orders. Because Dynamics 365 is highly customizable, the CRM sales process doesn't have to be identical for every business.
Creating a Connected Sales Process
One of the benefits of managing the entire sales process in Dynamics 365 is continuity. Information can move through the major stages of the sales process:
- Lead
- Opportunity
- Quote
- Order
Each step remains connected and traceable, providing historical information that can be reviewed later. Maintaining this information in a connected system also creates data you can evaluate and analyze. This can help your organization identify patterns, understand what's working well, and find opportunities to improve the sales process.
Customizing the Process for Your Business
Not every organization uses Quotes and Orders in the same way. Some businesses complete those stages within Dynamics 365, while others transition from CRM into an accounting system or ERP. Dynamics 365 can be customized to accommodate those differences. CRM can also be integrated with an ERP application so information moves between systems while maintaining continuity throughout the sales process. Organizations can further extend their reporting and analysis by incorporating tools such as Power BI to create interactive dashboards based on sales data. Ultimately, Dynamics 365 Sales can provide a consistent and connected process from an early Lead through an Opportunity, Quote, and Order, while offering the flexibility to adapt those stages around the way your business actually sells.
