Toward the end of every year, our sales team sits down and develops a plan for the coming year. That plan includes the products we will sell, who will sell those products, and a guideline for how much of each product our account managers will sell (we hope). That guideline translates into a quota in Microsoft CRM.
The quota not only helps us budget for the coming year but also gives us a series of quarterly milestones. Failure to meet quotas or milestones causes midterm reevaluations or sometimes something worse. Meeting or exceeding our goals is what keeps our company healthy and happy.
In this chapter, you find out how to set quotas for salespeople, how to log forecasted sales against those quotas, and how to adjust these forecasts and quotas as you go along.
Quotas relate to your company's quarterly fiscal periods. Before you can set up a quota for anyone, Microsoft CRM needs to know your company's fiscal periods. Fiscal periods may be set only once, and the task should probably be performed by someone with a title like CFO.
Quotas are usually related to the time period in which accountants measure profits and losses — that is, the fiscal period. Accountants have devised a variety of fiscal years. They can be based on calendar years or can end on other seemingly random dates. A fiscal year can be divided semiannually or quarterly.
Warning
You can set the fiscal year options only once. You can't change these settings after you set them.
To set a fiscal year, follow these steps:
Near the bottom of the navigation pane, click the Settings button and then select Business Management.
Eleven customization topics appear.
In the Settings window, select Organization Settings.
The Business Management Settings window appears.
Select Fiscal Year Settings from the list.
The Fiscal Year Settings window appears as shown in Figure 11-1.
Enter the starting date for your fiscal year in the Start Date field and select your intended interval for measuring revenue from the appropriate drop-down menu.
The required Template field allows you to specify your fiscal periods. The rest of the fields in this window allow you to specify the naming conventions your company uses and to formatt the periods.
Warning
You need to enter the fiscal year information carefully and correctly because you get only one shot at it. The system displays a warning message to this effect. You can't enter sales quotas until you've entered the fiscal year settings. If you set up your fiscal year beginning at some future date — let's say it's December, and you are setting up your system for the following year — you won't be able to enter sales quotas until you reach that future date.
Click OK to save your entries.
After the fiscal year information is set, you need to establish quotas. Of course, before you can enter quotas into the system, your management team must develop a business plan and sales plan and coordinate the quotas with that plan.
To set up the quota for a user (salesperson), follow these steps:
Near the bottom of the navigation pane, click the Settings button.
In the navigation pane, select Administration.
This selection brings you to a window with five topics as shown in Figure 11-2.
Select Users.
A list of all available users of the system appears.
Select one or more salespeople.
Although users is a more general term than salespeople, usually only salespeople have quotas. To select more than one salesperson, hold down the Ctrl key while clicking with the mouse. If a group of salespeople has the same quota, you can set quotas for the group all at once.
From the menu bar (at the top of the screen), choose Actions?Manage Quotas.
The Manage Quotas dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 11-3.
Warning
If you've selected more than one user, you may get a warning message. If this is the case, the new quota you're about to enter will override any existing quota. If that isn't your intention, you can cancel the operation; you return to the list of users (Step 3), where you can make another selection.
On the right side of the window, fill in each period's quota.
These quotas will apply to every salesperson you selected in Step 4. However, nothing happens until you click the Apply button.
Click the Apply button at the bottom of the dialog box.
The quotas are saved. This is an important step. If you click OK without applying your changes, nothing is saved.
Click the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box.
You return to the Quota window.
If you want to enter a quota for another salesperson, repeat Steps 4 through 8.
Anyone who's been in sales for more than a day has wrestled with sales forecasting in some fashion. This wrestling match may have been with some formal system or may have been a manager demanding to know when that big deal is going to finally go down. Without reasonably accurate sales forecasts, it's difficult for management to steer the boat.
Forecasts in Microsoft CRM are part of the Opportunities section of the program (in the Sales module). The words forecast and opportunity are nearly synonymous in this system.
To enter a new opportunity, follow these steps:
Near the bottom of the navigation pane, click the Sales button.
At the top of the navigation pane, select Opportunities.
The Opportunities window appears on the right, as shown in Figure 11-4.
On the Opportunities window's toolbar, click the New button.
The Opportunity: New window appears, as shown in Figure 11-5. On the General tab, the Topic, Potential Customer, and Currency fields are all required fields.
In the Topic field, enter a general description of the product or service you're selling.
For example, you might type Residential Swimming Pool Installation or Client Retention Consulting Engagement
Fill in the Potential Customer field as follows:
Click the magnifying glass to the right of the Potential Customer field so you can link the opportunity.
Every opportunity should be linked to an account or to a contact.
In the Look For field, select Account or Contact.
To follow along with the example, select Account.
A customer can be either an account (a business) or a contact (a person) and a forecast can relate to either entity.
Enter a portion of the potential customer's name and then click Find to locate the specific account or contact to which you're linking this opportunity.
(We discuss the Find function in detail in Chapter 3.) The Look Up Records dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 11-6.
In the Account Name field, select an account.
The General tab of the Opportunity: New window reappears.
For the Revenue option, select User Provided.
If you've set up price lists, you may be able to have the system calculate the price of your list of products and services. In this example, we assume that you don't have price lists that apply, so you need to do a manual entry of the price.
In the Est. Revenue field, enter the estimated revenue from this opportunity.
Fill in the Est. Close date field using the calendar at the end of the field.
In the Probability field, enter the probability of closing the deal.
If your company uses a sales process automated by workflow rules, this field may be auto-populated.
If you want, make a selection in the Rating drop-down list.
You can rate the deal Hot, Warm, or Cold, but the Probability field covers this.
In the Description field, add any comments.
Tip
You might notice that a Notes tab is associated with this new opportunity. There's no rule for using the Description field versus the Notes tab. However, for complex sales that take a long time to close or involve a team of people, we use the Notes tab so each note is time stamped and date stamped. For simpler and shorter deals, we use the Description field.
Click the Save and Close button.
You return to the Opportunities window.
Forecasts have a tendency to get stale quickly. We recommend that you review and revise your forecasts at least once a week. These revisions need to focus not only on the estimated close date but also on every field that may have changed.
To update a forecast, follow these steps:
Near the bottom of the navigation pane, click the Sales button.
At the top of the navigation pane, select Opportunities.
The Opportunities window appears. If the opportunity you need to update doesn't appear, check the View menu in the upper-right corner to make sure you're looking at My Open Opportunities or Open Opportunities.
Select the opportunity in question.
The detailed information for the opportunity appears, as shown in Figure 11-7.
Make your modifications.
Although much of the forecast is for your own benefit and is meant to keep you on track, the forecast is also probably being reviewed by the sales management team. Reasonable and realistic estimates are always better than pie-in-the-sky guesses.
Click the Save and Close button.
The Opportunities window reappears. From here, you can review or edit another opportunity that needs attention.
Microsoft CRM has built-in reports that focus on opportunity management: opportunity reports and pipeline reports.
Opportunity reports are typically simple line reports with subtotals or totals. You can filter and sort them by territory, potential revenue, closing probability, salesperson, and many other fields.
Pipeline reports and charts generally involve a little math. If you are a sales manager, you may want to see how much each salesperson is likely to close this quarter. A pipeline report can show this to you, either in tabular or graphic form, by multiplying the potential revenue by the probability.
Your dealer or a knowledgeable systems administrator can customize these reports, as well as set up additional custom reports. However, that customization is outside the scope of this book.
To select a report for printing or saving, follow these steps:
Near the bottom of the navigation pane, click the Sales button.
At the top of the navigation pane, select Opportunities.
The Opportunities window appears.
In the View drop-down list, select the opportunities you want to report on.
For example, choose My Open Opportunities if you want to see only your own deals, or choose Open Opportunities if you want a more company-wide report (assuming you have the rights to see these).
On the window's toolbar, click the Reports button.
The system displays a list of all available reports. Our copy of the software lists three reports: Competitor Win Loss and Lead Source Effectiveness and Sales Pipeline.
Select a report from the drop-down list as shown in Figure 11-8.
After the system processes all the data, the report appears on your screen.
Print or save the report.
Sales forecasting is one of the most critical aspects of the sales process at our company. It allows each salesperson to track his or her progress, and the information in the combined sales forecasts gives management a view of coming attractions. Most importantly, this same information allows workflow rules to ensure that no sale falls through the cracks.
You can export your forecast data directly to a local copy of Excel on your computer. Then, if you have even a little facility with Excel, you can manipulate the data and look at it in a tabular or in a graphical presentation. (If you need help with Excel, get a copy of Excel 2007 For Dummies, by Greg Harvey [Wiley Publishing].)
To export your forecast data to Excel, follow these steps:
Near the bottom of the navigation pane, click the Sales button.
At the top of the navigation pane, select Opportunities.
The Opportunities window appears.
In the View drop-down list, select the types of opportunities you want in your Excel export.
On the window's toolbar, click the Excel icon.
A screen appears with several worksheet choices.
For the simplest kind of export, select the first option and then click Export.
CRM loads your data into a local copy of Excel. You can then calculate totals, add columns with calculated values, or even create graphs.
For more sophisticated dynamic Excel tables, select the second or third choices.
Dynamic worksheets automatically update their data as you change the data in another application.