Sales Management Overview

Overview

The Sales Management module centralizes all activities that support the commercial lifecycle — from identifying potential clients to managing opportunities, defining pricing, and preparing customer proposals.

It provides a structured and traceable framework that enables organizations to:

• Manage customer records and accounts
• Track and qualify sales opportunities
• Build estimations for services, products, and project execution
• Issue commercial proposals with structured pricing and margin analysis
• Define and distribute sales targets through budgets
• Monitor customer interactions throughout the sales process

💡 Sales Management is fully integrated with Operations Management and Billing, ensuring that downstream processes receive accurate and validated information.

Key Components of the Sales Management Module

The module is organized into core features, each supporting a specific stage of the sales lifecycle.

1. Contacts

Central repository of individuals and organizations involved in the sales process.

Used across:

• Accounts
• Opportunities
• Estimations
• Proposals

2. Accounts

Represents companies or clients with whom the organization maintains a commercial relationship.

Stores structured information such as:

• Tax and legal data
• Addresses
• Contacts
• Bank information
• Operational transactions (e.g., invoices, documents, statements)

3. Opportunities

Used to track potential sales engagements.

Users can:

• Define opportunity details and customer data
• Assign responsible users
• Track pipeline stages
• Estimate potential revenue
• Attach supporting documentation

💡 Opportunities are typically the starting point for Estimations and Proposals.

4. Estimations

Defines service scope, timelines, and cost structures used for pricing.

Typical outputs include:

• Work plans and service items
• Cost and margin calculations
• Total estimated effort
• Supporting documentation

💡 Estimations can be reused and imported into Proposals.

5. Proposals

Formal commercial offers sent to customers.

Includes:

• Pricing, margins, and discounts
• Optional inherited work plans
• Customer and contract details
• Exchange rates
• Attachments
• Optional Sales Pipeline tracking

💡 Proposals ensure commercial consistency and support approval workflows.

6. Sales Exercises

Defines the time structure used for sales planning.

A Sales Exercise:

• Establishes planning periods (e.g., Annual, Monthly)
• Defines start and end dates
• Serves as the foundation for Sales Budgets

💡 Sales Exercises answer the question:
👉 “Over what time structure will we plan sales?”

7. Sales Budgets

Defines sales targets and their distribution.

Sales Budgets:

• Are linked to a Sales Exercise
• Define total target amounts
• Allow distribution across:
  • Periods
  • Regions
  • Sellers

💡 Sales Budgets answer the question:
👉 “How much do we plan to sell, and how is it distributed?”

Sales Planning Structure

Sales planning is structured in two layers:

1. Sales Exercise
   → Defines the time structure (periods)

2. Sales Budget
   → Defines values and distribution

💡 Together, they ensure that sales targets are both structured and actionable.

Sales Workflow Overview

The typical end-to-end process supported by the module is:

1. Create or maintain Contacts and Accounts
2. Define Sales Exercises (planning structure)
3. Create Sales Budgets (targets and distribution)
4. Identify a new Opportunity
5. Develop an Estimation (optional but recommended)
6. Generate a Proposal
7. Track progress through Sales Pipelines
8. Approve and finalize the Proposal
9. Handover to Operations or Billing

Key Functional Behavior

• Data flows consistently across all stages of the sales lifecycle
• Estimations and Proposals can be reused to reduce duplication
• Sales Budgets enable target tracking and performance alignment
• Sales Exercises ensure consistent time-based planning
• All processes are fully traceable and auditable

Benefits of the Sales Management Module

• Ensures consistent pricing and margin transparency
• Reduces manual effort through reuse of estimations and proposals
• Improves governance via structured workflows
• Enables structured sales planning through budgets
• Enhances visibility across the entire sales lifecycle
• Integrates seamlessly with finance and operations
• Provides full auditability

💡 Tip

To ensure proper sales planning:

• Always define a Sales Exercise before creating Sales Budgets
• Align budget structure (periods, regions, sellers) with business reporting needs
• Keep naming conventions consistent across all components

Related Articles

Sales Exercise
Sales Budget
Sales Management – Contact Segmentation
Sales management - Contact Lifecycle
Sales Management - Contact reason code
Sales Management – Accounts
Sales Management – Opportunities
Sales Management – Estimations
Sales Management – Proposals