9 Sales: from the potentials to the invoice

9 Sales: from the potentials to invoice

The main modules and processes involved in the pre-sales, sales and after-sales phases are:

What are normally defined as marketing lists (from websites, word-of-mouth, fairs or various suppliers) are managed with the Leads module. As explained in the first part of this manual, the sales person who manages the lead will convert it into a customer (company and/or contact) only after the expression of real interest.

With this method, it is possible to keep a clear distinction between activities for potential customers and those for customers that have already acquired or are under negotiation. All commercial activities proper are therefore carried out on Accounts and/or Contacts. You will find many connection possibilities from the company/contact reports menu as all CRM revolves around the customer.

Let us now look at the business and administrative processes in detail: Potential, Quote, Sales Order, Invoice.

9.1 Potentials

A potential is established if there is a real interest in your products/services from both potential and current customers, opening up a negotiation process. If it is not created automatically through conversion (see the section on Leads), you can subsequently add the potential to the Company to which it is addressed, through the relations menu.

The potential is the container of the negotiation and all the information, documents and communication between you and the customer strictly related to the individual negotiation.

In addition, the tool has commercial forecast and report objectives that should not be overlooked (e.g. the Budget tool available for this purpose). The option of customising the registry by modifying the fields through Layout Editor also applies to Potentials, as for all the vtenext modules.

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Potential Name

Name of the potential

Amount (€)

Useful for anyone wishing to make predictions about the value of open potentials, even though the initial value may be indicative. It is self-calculated at the time of linking with a quote if product lines have been organised

Account name

Link to the customer company present in the CRM

Expected Close Date

Expected date of conclusion of the deal

Type

Allows for cataloguing between existing and new business

Next Step

The next step in the negotiation

Lead Source

Reports the origin of the lead, in the event that the potential arises from a lead conversion

Sales Stage

Important to know the state of progress of the negotiation

Assigned to

By default, assigned to the user who creates it. Identifies the salesperson who manages the negotiation

Probability (%)

Probability of success of the negotiation which, multiplied by the amount, makes it possible to obtain a plausible forecast of the value of the single potential

Campaign Source

If the source is an ongoing or completed campaign, you can link it

Potentials can also be exported and imported via .csv (see relevant chapter).

9.2 Quotes

You can create a new quote through the reports and Add Quote menu from the potential, company or contact registry.

NB.: a quote cannot be created starting from a lead.

Alternatively, you can create a new quote from the Quotes module usingimage-1645108836389.png, entering the links to the customer manually.

Subject

It is recommended that the name of the company and/or the project be mentioned to facilitate searches

Potential name

Link field of the quote to the relevant business potential

Quote Stage

Important for knowing the state of progress of the negotiation. The statuses can be freely set by the system administrator

Valid Till

Expiry date of the offer

Contact Name

Connection with the contact person (equivalent to "for the attention of")

Inventory Manager

The choice of an inventory manager does not involve automatisms, it is a field of view only

Account Name

Connection with the client company to which the quote refers

Assigned to

The CRM user who is managing the quote, by default the person creating it


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The second part of the data sheet shows the product/service lines. You can enter your product by filling in the appropriate section.

For Quotes, vtenext considers all types of taxes and discounts that may be applied to product and service offerings, including local, state or federal taxes as well as special taxes. These taxes can be calculated on each product/service or on the total document.
Before selecting the product/service, you should decide which mode to use for taxation.
The figure below shows an example for inputting the details of products calculated with the individual mode.

In the figure below you can see the details of insertion with the Group mode. Here the total taxes are calculated after the insertion of all the products.

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In the picture below you can see the detail of the insertion with the “Group” modality. Here the amount of the taxes is calculated after having inserted all the products .

9.2 [3].png

ATTENTION: the products block will always be at the bottom of the page even if you move it with the layout editor.

Products

Select the desired product or service. You can add a comment for each single product offered

Quantity In Stock

After selecting a product, you will see here the current stock quantity uploaded automatically

Quantity

Quantity per item per single offer

Unit Price

It is displayed as set out in the product data sheet

List Price

You can use the Price List icon to select a different price from the price list; the price lists containing the product will be proposed

Discount

You can discount per product line and/or in total, expressed as a percentage of the list price or a precise figure. In the case of %, it is possible to indicate several discounts in sequence by separating the percentages with

Tax

vtenext calculates taxes based on the information set out in the product data sheet. It is possible to change the tax without changing the product catalogue entry. You can display one tax per line or in total

Margin

Calculated automatically: it’s the ratio between profit (list price - product cost) and list price

Shipping charges

You can add additional shipping and handling fees

Tax on shipping charges

You can add additional taxes on shipping and handling fees

Adjustment

Rounding the final value upwards or downwards

Once you have saved the quote, you can create or send the relevant PDF using the functions provided by the PDF Maker module panel in the Other menu, at the top right.

For more information on the PDF Maker module and printing, please refer to the relevant chapter.

You can use the reports menu to specifically link communication with your customer (Messages), appointments (Activities), the scan of the quote with changes that the customer asks you to make (Documents), and so on, to the quote.

9.3 Sales orders

The potential can be considered as obtained when the order confirmation arrives. The order, however, may change from the initial proposed quote. vtenext gives you the option of keeping track of these differences. By default, the Generate Sales Order button from the Other menu of the quote sheet allows you to create the order by transferring the contents of the quote and making any changes.

SalesOrder.png

Subject

We recommend including the reference to the company and/or potential to facilitate any future search of the order

Potential Name

Link between the order and relevant potential

Customer Number

If you use customer number codes, you can enter the one relating to the order here

Quote Name

Link to the quote that originated the order

Purchase Order

If the customer sends you a reference to their purchase order, you can enter it here

Contact Name

Connection with the customer contact (person you deal with)

Due Date

Order due date

Carrier

You can indicate the carrier that will make the delivery

Status

Important for knowing the state of progress of the order. The statuses can be freely set by the system administrator

Excise Duty

Special taxes or other costs

Account Name

Connection with the customer company to whom the order refers

Sales Commission

Any commissions

Assigned to

The CRM user who is managing the order, by default the person creating it

9.3.1 Recurring billing from Sales Order

It is possible to activate the automatic generation of invoices from the sales order through the options in the Recurring Billing Information block.

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Enable Recurring

Tick to enable automatic invoice generation from the sales order, after creating the first invoice

Frequency

Daily, weekly, monthly

Start Period

When the recurring billing will start

End Date

When the recurring billing will end

Payment Duration

Indicate duration

Invoice Status

The status that auto-generated invoices will assume by default

Warning! For recurring billing it is necessary to enable the CRON of the server on which vtenext is installed! See the relevant paragraph: CRONJOB – Processes to plan.

9.4 Budget

The Potentials module shows information relating to their progress in relation to other linked items. The Budget module is navigable through the tabs shown in the figure:

9.4 [1].png

The Information tab directly relates to the potential, while other data sheets relate to the Budget.

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Product lines: information on amounts and profit margins organised by product lines. The products are those included in the related sales order or quote, grouped as set out in the Product Lines module. The amount is the sum of the economic values of all the products present in the potential belonging to a given line. The margin is calculated, again per line, based on the difference between the sales price of the product and its cost. The margin is expressed as a percentage and is calculated by making a weighted average of the products present in the line. The formula used to calculate the margin is: [SUM(prices) - SUM(costs)] / SUM(prices)]. The cost of each product must be defined in the relevant data sheet via the Unit cost field.

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Charts: show the historical amounts of the different deals made through the sales potential.
vtenext also provides general budget management features based on the information contained in Potentials, Products, Product Lines, Quotes (for quotes, only those in the "Created" or "Delivered" status are considered). Some values in these modules will feed the Budget by Product Line report contained in the Budget folder in the Reports module.

You can access them directly by clicking on the "Budget" button in the Potentials menu.

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This report allows you to have an immediate view of your business situation, organised by period of time.
You can navigate the data by year, half-year, quarter or month. The following data are presented:

By default, the report presents information organised by product line. It is, however, also possible to organise it by user assignee of the potential.

Summing up briefly

The Best, Forecast, Worst columns are then counted based on the% chance of closing the opportunity. To be counted in the "Best" column, the opportunity must have a probability of at least 70% closing, to be counted in the "Forecast" column, at least 80% and to appear in the "Worst" column, it must be at least 90%.

9.5 Invoices

The billing module is useful for managing the administrative part in vtenext (amounts to be paid, closed invoices, outstanding invoices) and keeping all the customer history in one platform.

The module can be used independently from the Quotes module. Companies often prepare very accurate quotes with long product descriptions, while invoices are almost always summary descriptions indicating amounts and payment methods.

The Create Invoice button from the sales order or quote master (Other menu) will open with the invoice already attached, proposing the same content.

9_5 Invoices.png

Subject

Invoice name

Sales order

Link field to the original sales order

Customer Number

If the customer has an internal code

Invoice date

Each invoice must have a date

Payment due date

Due date for payment of this invoice

Purchase Order

Reference to the customer's purchase order, if any

Manufacturing tax

Information on manufacturing taxes

Sales Commissions

Any sales commission

Account Name

Link to the customer company

Status

Important for knowing the state of progress of the invoice. The statuses can be freely set by the system administrator

Assigned to

User who manages the invoice, by default the person creating it

The invoice can be exported to PDF according to the available templates: see PDF Maker chapter.

9.6 Delivery Notes

The Delivery Notes module is used to manage transport documents and is the last step in the sales-administration cycle.

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Enter the main fields and the products related to the shipment. It is possible to create a Delivery Note starting from a sales order through Create Delivery Note (Other menu); in this case all the data of the sales order will be reported in the Delivery Notes. For PDF printing of the Delivery Note, see the chapter dedicated to the PDF Maker module.