Lead
A Lead in ERPNext is a prospect customer who has expressed interest in your products or services but has not yet qualified as an opportunity.
In order to get the customer in the door, you might be doing all or some of the following:
- Putting your product or service on business listings.
- Having a current, SEO-optimized site.
- Encountering prospective customers at trade shows and networking meetings.
- Promoting your products or services through online and offline marketing.
- Leverage social media and word of mouth through referral programs.
When your outreach and marketing efforts create interest, individuals may contact or respond. These are your Leads. They are called Leads because they can lead you to a sale.
Sales managers usually follow up leads by calling, mailing, meeting, or sending information relevant to the lead. ERPNext simplifies recording all such calls, emails, meetings, and documents in a single location. In this way, if someone else has to follow up subsequently, they can view the entire history of interaction for that lead, avoiding lost context and facilitating communication.
To view the Lead list, go to:*
1. Production of a Lead
- Go to Lead list and then select New.
- In case he or she is representing an organization, then tick the Lead Is an Organization box.
- When marked the field of Company Name turns to be required. Give the name of the company.
- In case this person is a person, leave the checkbox without marking and place Person Name and Gender.
- Enter the Email Address and, if desired, phone number, mobile number, and website.
- Status is a significant field of the Lead. You may configure the status manually or it will be automatically updated according to your activities against the lead:
- Lead – Default status when a lead is created; follow-up is required.
- Open – Sales executive has to establish contact.
- Replied – Message sent to the lead; expecting response.
- Opportunity – Qualified lead has an opportunity record created for them.
- Quotation – Quotation sent to the lead.
- Lost Quotation – Quotation as lost.
- Interested – Lead is interested.
- Converted – Lead has been converted into a customer by a confirmed Sales Order.
- Do Not Contact – Lead is uninterested; no need for further contact.
- Enter the Lead Source in the Source field (e.g., Website, Trade Show, Advertisement, Referral).
- Direct the lead to a sales executive or team member for follow-up.
- Click on Save.
You can also note down conversation details in the Notes section so that all interactions are stored for future reference.
Additional information like Lead Type, Market Segment, Industry, and other criteria of classification can be included in the More Information section. In ERPNext, it is possible to customize these fields to align with your sales segmentation approach for your company.
If you possess a reasonable number of leads, keeping this information will enable you to filter out, score, and prioritize those leads that have high possibilities of converting.
It is possible to assign the lead to one particular user or team by pressing the Assign button on the left. It is now possible to automate the assignments through Assignment Rules thus reducing manual work of making allocations. It is also possible to add files, product brochures, pictures, or any other documents of importance by clicking the Attach File button making the lead record serve as a centerpoint to all related contents.
2. Features
2.1 Follow-up Reminders on the Leads
Follow-ups on a regular basis are essential to establish relationships and move the leads through the sales pipeline. You can create a calendar event or a task for the involved user from the Activities tab. ERPNext will then indicate a reminder or notification on the set date, and the events can be synced with your Google or Outlook calendar as well via integration.
2.2 Adding Multiple Contacts and Addresses
In business-to-business (B2B) operations, one sales transaction could involve negotiation with several stakeholders within the same firm. ERPNext provides the ability to add multiple Contacts and Addresses within a single lead record.
- After saving the lead, click New Contact to enter stakeholder information, such as role and contact details.
- Likewise, click New Address to save billing, shipping, or branch office addresses.
This ensures that all concerned decision-makers and locations are connected to the same lead profile.
2.3 Comments, Emails, and Events Recording
- Comments: Utilize the Add a comment box to note quick updates, observations, or progress notes.
- Emails: You can send an email directly through ERP next by going to New Email. During the call, each and every response of the lead will automatically be compiled and stored in one record.
- Events: Take advantage of the new Event tool to have a record of calls or meeting or demos or a visit to the site. This will give your a time line of all the activities involving lead.
2.4 Creating Opportunity, Customer, and Quotation
From the Create or Make dropdown list, you can easily create an Opportunity, Customer, or Quotation from a lead. It will automatically transfer all the relevant fields, including contact and company, to the new document, making a significant saving as well as eliminating any chance of error that could be committed manually.
2.5. Auto-allocation of the Leads to Sales Executives
You can also automatically assign the leads to sales executives based on rules including territory, source, industry or workload balancing through Assignment Rules.
This makes the response quick and avoids delays that are caused by manual assignment.
3. Adding Custom Fields
If you need to gather more lead data about your business process, you can use ERPNext's Customize Form functionality to add Custom Fields to the Lead DocType. The default options will also be presented together with such options. This allows you to tailor the CRM to exactly fit your needs.