Pipeline by Stage
Open amount and deal count at each stage, weighted and unweighted, by owner and territory in the reporting currency, with the movement since last week and the deals whose close date slipped between the two weekly snapshots.
Forecast cycle
The weekly rhythm: reps categorise every open deal and submit, managers review and adjust on the record, and the period locks so the forecast can be checked against what closed.
6 stages · 2 approvals
Roles and responsibilities
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Step 1Categorise
Opportunity NumberOpportunity NameAccountOwner
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Step 2Submit
Forecast NumberUserPeriodWeek EndingQ2
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Step 3Review
SubjectTypeAccountContactMeeting
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Step 4Adjust
Forecast NumberUserPeriodWeek EndingQ2
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Step 5Lock
Forecast NumberUserPeriodWeek EndingQ2
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Step 6Compare
Opportunity NumberOpportunity NameAccountOwner
Process steps
Follow the process from start to finish. Select a step to see who acts and what changes.
Categorise
Before the submission day, each rep works through their open deals in the period, sets the close date, and sets the forecast category on each: commit, best case, pipeline or omitted. Stage suggests the category; the rep's judgement sets it, and a category that differs from the stage default is visible as such.
Submit
The rep submits the weekly forecast in the quota currency, each deal converted at the period rate and measured on the quota's basis. Closed is calculated from validated wins in the period; commit is the sum of deals in commit; best case is commit plus the deals in best case; pipeline is best case plus everything else open. The rep may adjust commit down with a comment. The submission stores the four numbers and a line per open deal as they stood that week.
Approval required
Review
The manager opens each submitted forecast and sees the deals behind the numbers with stage, category, next step, last activity and quote status. The manager challenges what does not hold up, and the rep updates the deal, which updates the next submission.
Adjust
The manager applies an adjustment to commit, signed either way, with a comment, and marks the forecast reviewed. The rep's number and the manager's adjustment are kept side by side. The manager's own submission upward is built from the reviewed team forecasts.
Approval required
Lock
Sales Manager locks the team's submissions at period end. Locked forecasts cannot be changed and are what the attainment report and the executive read.
Compare
After the period closes, the forecast as it stood at each week is compared with what closed, by rep and by manager, deal by deal from the weekly lines. The comparison feeds quota setting and the conversation about what commit means on this team.
Approvals and exception handling
2 approvals required in this process
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Review
Sales Manager signs · adjust waits
ForecastSubmissions, Opportunities, Activities -
Lock
Sales Manager signs · compare waits
ForecastSubmissions -
One submission per repQuota and week, on the configured day. Sales Manager checks submitted records against Users and published Quotas to find missing submissions; an absent record cannot appear in Forecasts Pending Review by itself.
Users - Manager adjustments are separate fieldsA mandatory comment; the rep's number is never overwritten.
- Locked submissions are read-only for everyone; reopening a period is an admin action that is logged.
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Quotas are published recordsThe attainment shown is against the number the rep was told, with its date.
Quotas -
ForecastSubmissionLines stores AppliedExchangeRateForecastAmount with the deal-currency amount. Later rate changes do not alter a submitted snapshot.
ForecastSubmissionLines
When the process needs attention
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exception
The deal that is always next month
The weekly forecast lines show close-date slips between submissions. Pipeline by Stage compares those snapshots; Team Pipeline supplies the current deal list for the review.
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exception
Sandbagging and its opposite
The weekly snapshots show whether a rep's commit is consistently below or above what they close, and by how much. The manager's adjustments show whether the manager corrects for it.
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exception
The forecast in a spreadsheet
The review happens on the submission, with the deals one click away, and the locked submission is what the executive reads, so a spreadsheet copy carries nothing the record does not.
Records and postings
| Stage | Records | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Categorise | Opportunities | none |
| 2 Submit | ForecastSubmissionsForecastSubmissionLinesQuotasExchangeRates | weekly snapshot stores each deal and its applied conversion rate |
| 3 Review | ForecastSubmissionsOpportunitiesActivities | deals updated by the rep |
| 4 Adjust | ForecastSubmissions | manager number recorded |
| 5 Lock | ForecastSubmissions | period closed for edits |
| 6 Compare | ForecastSubmissionsForecastSubmissionLinesQuotasOpportunities | attainment and accuracy reported |
Process reports
All reportsForecast vs Quota
Closed, commit and best case against quota per rep, with open pipeline as coverage of the quota remaining, rolled up through manager to region at the period rate, with the manager adjustment shown separately.
Pipeline Created
New opportunities and amount added per week by owner, source, campaign, partner and type.
Run by an agent
Agent support
The configured workflows must keep lead acceptance with Account Executive, negotiation approval with Sales Manager and bookings validation with Deal Desk. An agent can prepare evidence and drafts for those decisions. Forecast review, quote approval and realignment approval also remain human actions. Rehearsal must verify refusal of unauthorised actions and attribution of every permitted write before the agent is enabled.
# Example after configuration
$ curl -fsSL https://www.erp.ai/skill.md | paste into your agent
› forecast cycle · categorise on Opportunities
✓ Before the submission day, each rep works through their open deals in the period, sets the close date, and sets the forecast category on each: commit, best case, pipeline or omitted.
› forecast cycle · submit on ForecastSubmissions, ForecastSubmissionLines, Quotas, ExchangeRates
✓ The rep submits the weekly forecast in the quota currency, each deal converted at the period rate and measured on the quota's basis.
› forecast cycle · review on ForecastSubmissions, Opportunities, Activities
⏸ approval · waiting for the sales manager
# 3 more stages after approval: adjust, lock, compare
Other processes
4 moreLead to deal
From a lead arriving to a signed contract handed to customer success: routing, qualification, acceptance, proposal, negotiation, the bookings check and the handover, with the gates where a person decides.
6 stages · 3 approvals
Quote approval
How a priced proposal gets from a rep's draft to the customer's inbox: the rules that decide who must approve, the steps in sequence, and what happens on rejection, revision and expiry.
6 stages · 1 approval
Renewal
From a contract's notice deadline to the next contract signed: the opportunity the system opens, the risk call, the renewal quote and approval, and what happens when the customer says no.
6 stages · 2 approvals
Territory realignment
Changing who owns which accounts without losing deals in flight: modelling the new rules, approving the moves, applying them in bulk, handing over open deals, and checking nothing was orphaned.
6 stages · 2 approvals