Your sales process

Your company describes how it sells in two places: the sales process (stages and what each requires) and the product catalog (what you sell and for how much). Everyone can read both. Only an admin can change them.

Three ways for an admin to change them

1. In chat:
   Add a stage called Pilot before Negotiation

   Require a decision-maker before Proposal

   Require a signed NDA before Negotiation

   Set the Pro plan to €99 per seat per month

   After every won deal, book a handover call within three days
2. In Settings: add, rename, reorder and remove stages, add and remove requirements, set probabilities and stall limits, tick allowed moves, add and deactivate products. The stage list is the same one Company set-up shows, and every change saves at once.
3. As a document: View / edit sales process document shows the whole process as text. An admin can rewrite it in plain language, click Convert to structured data, review the proposed changes and Approve & apply or Discard. Everyone else can read it as markdown.

Stages

The standard process every new company starts with:

• Each stage has a description that doubles as its guidance: advice like "confirm the timeline before the proposal". It never blocks anything.
• Allowed moves (the grid in Settings): by default any open stage can move to any other open stage and to Won or Lost, and a stage you add gets the same moves. Won and Lost are final unless the admin adds a move out of them.
• A stage that still has opportunities in it can't be removed. Move them first.
• The process always keeps a won and a lost stage, and no stage can be both. To make another stage the won or lost one, ask Aino or change it in the sales process document. A document without them is refused when you approve it.
• Names are yours. Stages show everywhere (badges, the Pipeline page, the deal card) exactly as your admin named them, in your process's order, and a new stage gets its own colour. Only the won and lost stages always read Closed won and Closed lost, in each person's language.

Requirements

Requirements must be things ainocrm can check on the opportunity: deal size, close date, products, a decision-maker, or a named signed document. If an admin asks for something that can't be measured ("budget approved"), Aino offers to put it in the stage's guidance instead.

A stage can have several. Set them in chat, in the document, or in the stage list (Settings › Sales process, or the Sales process step of Company set-up): under a stage, use + Add a requirement (pick one of the checks, or A signed document… with its name) or the × on a requirement. These save straight away and end up in the document too. The pencil on a stage opens its description, close probability and stall limit.

How requirements block and advance opportunities is explained on Your opportunities.

Signed documents

"Require a signed NDA before Negotiation" adds a document requirement. Any name works, and a stage can require several. It is met when the e-signature service's completion email reaches ainocrm (connected Gmail or the log address), or when someone says "Acme signed the NDA". Sent or viewed doesn't count.

By default one signature per customer covers all their opportunities (good for an NDA). For a document each deal needs its own copy, tell Aino it's required per deal. A document recorded as signed by mistake: "the NDA isn't actually signed yet".

Lost reasons

When an opportunity is lost, Aino asks the rep why and files the answer under one of these, keeping the rep's own words. An email that closes a deal and says why is filed without asking; deals lost through an automation or an import have no reason until someone gives one. Reps never pick from a list; Aino does the matching. The standard list:

• Price
• Chose a competitor
• No budget
• No decision / went silent
• Product didn't fit
• Bad timing
• Other — always there and can't be removed, for anything that doesn't fit.

• Change it in the document's Lost Reasons section, or ask Aino: "add 'Lost to an in-house build' as a lost reason", "remove Bad timing". Up to 15, counting Other.
• Deals already lost keep the reason they were given.
• Keep the reasons short and distinct. Leaders see lost deals grouped by them (see Pipeline & forecast), so "Price" and "Too expensive" side by side only splits the picture.

Forecast settings

An admin can change the forecast settings by asking, too:

The setting itself is a multiple of the quota, so an amount is worked out against the quota set for that quarter: €150,000 with a €50,000 quota is 3×, and the assistant tells you the sum. If the quarter has no quota yet, nothing changes and the assistant says what quota would fit. The pipeline target then follows the quota when it changes.

A stall limit is between 1 and 365 days; leave it empty and the stage never stalls.

After-sale steps

Steps that become tasks when an opportunity is won: for every win ("handover call within 3 days", "account review every 90 days"), or for a product ("adoption check-in 30 days after selling the Pro plan"). Up to 20, each on a day after the win, optionally repeating. Set in chat or the document. Changes don't affect opportunities already won. What the salesperson sees is on After the win.

The product catalog

Each product has a name, optional SKU and description, a currency and a pricing model:

• Recurring (per day, week, month, quarter or year; counted by the year on opportunities),
• Fixed or One-time,
• Usage-based,
• Quote only (no list price; the agreed price is asked when attached).

Extra details like "per seat" or a contract term (used for renewal dates) are kept as attributes. Products are never deleted, only deactivated, so old opportunities keep them. Changing the catalog never changes the sales process.