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CRM Module — A Guide from Scratch for Salespeople

This guide is written for a salesperson who has never used a CRM. The goal is not to make you memorise buttons but to explain why it works this way. Once the logic clicks, the screen explains itself. Read it in order.

1. What is a CRM for?

Picture a salesperson's pocket notebook: "call Mr. Deniz", "quoted him, he is thinking", "their budget opens in October"… That notebook is a treasure — it is the map of the money the company is about to earn. But it has three fatal flaws: it is the only copy (it gets lost), it is personal (when the salesperson leaves, the knowledge leaves too) and it is silent (nobody can look at it and say "how much will we close this month?").

A CRM is that notebook turned into shared memory everybody can see. You write down the same things — but now the program answers three questions by itself: (1) Who must I call today? (2) How much business is expected to close this month? (3) Why did we lose the deals we lost? A spreadsheet can do none of this, because a spreadsheet is a table; a CRM is a reminder + calculator + memory.

2. The 7 concepts you must know

Everything in the CRM window is built on these seven words. Do not memorise them — understand the logic:

2.1 CRM jargon ↔ plain language

You will hear these terms in meetings and from consultants. Here are the equivalents:

3. Getting to know the screen

When you open the CRM window you see eight tabs: Opportunities, Kanban, Pipeline, Targets, Campaigns, B2B Portal, Visits, Templates. Don't panic: as a salesperson, 90% of your daily work happens in the first two. The rest are either reports or settings a manager configures once.

📷 Actual screen 🗺 What each field does

Figure 2 — What each tab is for (a real screenshot replaces this diagram once uploaded)

4. The story we will follow throughout

Let's be concrete. You are at a furniture fair. Ms. Deniz from Deniz Yapı Malzemeleri stops at your stand, leaves a business card and says: "we need 200 wooden chairs for the new branch opening in October". You have a card, a sentence and a possibility. Through the rest of this guide we follow this story from the fair to the order.

Now let's see how that single line moves through the funnel. The funnel is the oldest and most honest picture of selling: many go in at the top, few come out at the bottom. Your goal is not to win every deal — it is to drop the losers early and spend your time on the winners.

5. Run your first opportunity end to end

Follow the six steps below in order. After each one, check what changed.

1. Open the opportunity card

   CRM → Opportunities → + New Opportunity. A single-screen form appears. The only mandatory field is the Title (leave it empty and the program says "Title required"), but leaving the amount and probability empty cripples the pipeline. Here is what each field is for:

   📷 Actual screen 🗺 What each field does

   Figure 4 — Anatomy of the opportunity card

   How do I choose the probability?

   Not by feel — by stage. Use a simple ladder: Lead 10–30%, Meeting 40–50%, Quote sent 60–75%, verbal yes 90%. When everyone uses the same ladder the pipeline numbers become comparable.

   ⚠ Do not leave the expected month empty

   The pipeline table groups rows by month × owner. With an empty expected month your deal falls into the "—" row and disappears from the monthly forecast; your manager cannot count your work when planning.

2. Log an activity and put a date on the next step

   Click your opportunity in the list; the detail panel opens on the right. The activity form sits at the bottom. Four fields: the type (phone, visit, e-mail, meeting, quote, note), the note, the next step and its date. Press Add activity.

   Field	In our story	Why it matters
   tip	telefon	So you can later count which channel actually works
   Note	"Opening in October, 200 pcs, budget approved in September"	In three months you will not remember this — the system will
   Next step	"Take a sample chair"	The only thing keeping the deal alive; empty means it dies quietly
   Next step date	2026-08-11	A calendar reminder is created; once overdue you land in the red band

   Rule: Fill in at least one of Note and Next step — an activity with both empty is not saved.

   ℹ What happens when you enter a date?

   If the next step has both text and a date, the program writes a calendar reminder titled CRM: take a sample chair. If the calendar cannot be written the activity is still saved and you only see an information message — you can add the reminder manually from the Calendar.

   Once saved, the log shows the date, the user name and your note. Activities are never deleted: if a correction is needed you add a new "note" activity explaining it. That is what turns the log into a historical record.

3. Drag the card in Kanban to advance the stage

   You delivered the sample and Ms. Deniz liked it. The deal is no longer a Lead, it is at Meeting. Go to CRM → Kanban: you see four columns — Lead, Meeting, Quote, Won. Grab the card and drop it into the next column; the status is saved instantly.

   📷 Actual screen 🗺 What each field does

   Figure 5 — The Kanban board
   💡 What is Kanban good for?

   Over your morning coffee it answers, at a glance, "where are deals stuck?". If one column swells (say 12 cards waiting at Quote) there is a problem there: are prices too high, or is nobody following up? Dragging in Kanban does not change the probability — update that from the card form.

4. Convert the lead into an account (one click)

   Things got serious: you are about to quote. A quotation is a document, and in HNR every document is written against an account card — so "Deniz Yapı" must now become a real customer card. In the detail panel press → Convert to account. The program asks for the new account code (pre-filled with a suggestion derived from the lead name); once you confirm:

   • The lead name becomes the title, and the phone and e-mail are copied to the new account card.
   • The opportunity's account code field is filled automatically; the list now shows the account title instead of the lead name.
   • The button disappears — there is no lead left to convert.
   ⚠ Careful with the code

   An account code is hard to change later (documents attach to it). Follow your company's coding convention (e.g. DENIZ-YAPI) instead of inventing an abbreviation. If the company already exists as an account, do not convert: just type the existing code into the Account code field on the card form.

5. Convert to a quote, then to an order (one click)

   The detail panel holds two more buttons: → Convert to quote and → Convert to order. Both do the same thing; only the document type differs:

   1. An HNR document is created for the opportunity's account with today's date; its description reads CRM opportunity #12: Deniz Yapı — 200 chairs.
   2. The opportunity amount is copied in as a single expense line (480,000 TL × 1).
   3. A line "converted to a quote document — document no …" is added to the activity log.
   4. The status advances: to Quote for a quotation, and straight to Won for an order.
   ⚠ Work the line items in the document screen

   The conversion gives you a ready draft, not a finished quotation. You enter the real product codes (SNDLY-01 × 200), unit prices, discounts and payment terms in the Quote/Order window. The single expense line only carries the amount across; it is not what you send to the customer.

   You cannot turn an unlinked opportunity into a document: the program warns "Link it to an account first" and sends you back to step 4. The reason is simple — a document is issued to a customer, not to a business card.

   Figure 6 — The opportunity → account → quote → order chain

6. Close the opportunity: Won or Lost

   Every opportunity closes sooner or later. Old deals left open inflate the pipeline and make the report lie. Open the card form with Edit and change the Status field:

   • Won — the order is in. Set the probability to 100%; it now shows up in actual revenue, not in the pipeline.
   • Lost — the business went elsewhere or the customer gave up. The moment you pick it, a red field opens on the form: Loss reason (required). You cannot save without it; the server rejects an empty reason.
   🚫 Why is the loss reason MANDATORY?

   Because it is the only place the company can learn from. You lose 60 deals a year; if the reasons are written down, six months later a fact emerges — "half of our losses are about long lead times" — and production planning changes. Without it, all that remains is a vague feeling that "the competitor was cheaper", and nothing improves. A good reason: "The competitor could deliver 8 weeks earlier." A bad one: "price".

   ℹ Why is there no "Lost" column in Kanban?

   Because dragging a card to "Lost" would let you skip the loss reason. You mark a loss from the card form, so you cannot get past without typing the reason. The obstacle is deliberate.

   ✅ Congratulations

   You have taken an opportunity from the fair all the way to an order. From here it is repetition: open a card → log activity → date the next step → advance the stage → close it. The remaining sections explain how this data is read.

6. Reading the pipeline

In CRM → Pipeline you type nothing; you only read. Three summary cards sit on top and a table broken down by month × owner below. Everyone's first question is the same: "It says 1,210,000 TL in total but 636,000 TL weighted expected. Why are they different?"

📷 Actual screen 🗺 What each field does

Figure 7 — The Pipeline tab and the weighted expected revenue calculation

The table breaks down by month × owner: two salespeople in the same month give you two rows. The bar on the right shows each row relative to the largest one — you can see at a glance whose month is full and whose is empty. Only open deals count; a won deal is no longer pipeline, it is revenue, and a lost deal counts for nothing.

7. Targets — what was promised vs. what was done

The pipeline forecasts the future; the Targets tab measures the past. A manager enters Year, Month, Owner (salesperson) and Target (TL) and saves. Each row of the table shows four numbers:

The two tables audit each other: a high pipeline with low actuals means deals are being valued unrealistically (inflated probabilities). High actuals with an empty pipeline means this month went well but next month is at risk — you need to create new opportunities.

8. Campaigns — the program remembering for you

A campaign has two halves: a condition and an action. The condition comes in two flavours — Document total (document ≥ X TL) or Specific product (at least Y units of a given code). So does the action — a Discount (%) or a Free product (which code, how many). There are also Start/End dates and an Active checkbox.

8.1 The live band while you type a document

A campaign's real work is not visible in the Campaigns tab but while you are typing a quote, order or invoice. Every time a line or a total changes, the program re-evaluates the rules and shows a band under the line items:

• Green band (🎁) — the campaign has triggered on this document: the condition is met, you can apply the discount or the free item.
• Amber band (💡) — an "almost there" suggestion: the condition is not met yet but it is close. It is there so you can say "add 20,000 TL more and you earn a 5% discount".

9. How the CRM connects to other windows

The CRM is not an island. What you type there shows up in these five places:

10. The four most common mistakes

None of these are program errors — the software keeps working. The damage is quiet: the reports simply start lying and nobody notices.

11. Your daily routine by role

12. Frequently asked questions

13. Glossary

14. Turning an opportunity into a quote or order with one click

The only way to turn an opportunity into a document used to be "→ Convert to quote (open in entry)": the opportunity data arrived pre-filled in the document entry window and you completed the lines and saved. That path still exists. The new path is a single call: the Convert to quote / Convert to order button on the opportunity row (or the ⚡ buttons in the detail panel) opens a small window; you enter the lines there and the program writes the document and links it to the opportunity — two jobs, one click.

Step by step

1. In CRM › Opportunities press Convert to quote or Convert to order at the right of the row. The opportunity must be linked to an account; convert the lead to an account first (section 5, step 4).
2. Enter the lines in the window: stock code, quantity, price, VAT, discount. If you do not want lines, tick "Expense line" — the opportunity amount is written as a single expense row.
3. Fill warehouse, due date and description if you wish; press Save. The server assigns the document number.
4. Result: the document is written, the opportunity stage changes by itself (quote → Quote, order → Won) and a green badge appears on the row: Order #N or Quote #N. A "document" activity is also recorded on the opportunity.

Permission: the CRM module (part of the sales template) and write permission for the target document (quote or order). Without the second you can open the window but Save returns "module closed" (403).

15. The "Warehouse stock" tab — the salesperson's own regional warehouse

A salesperson must be able to tell the customer "is it in stock, how many?" — without opening the whole Warehouses window. The Warehouse stock tab in CRM is a read-only list: code, description, on hand, reserved, available, in transit, min/max level and location. Rows below the minimum are red; the search box looks in code and description; the "show zero rows" box also lists empty cards.

Scope rule: the warehouses you see are those you are a keeper of in the Warehouses window plus the default warehouse on your user card. With one warehouse the tab opens it; with several you pick from the selector at the top. A manager sees every warehouse. Asking for a warehouse outside your scope returns 403 and the message lists the warehouses you may see. If your scope is empty (no keeper role and no default warehouse) you get 422 — your administrator must assign you in Warehouses › Keepers.

Permission: the CRM module alone is enough; the Warehouses module is not required. That is why a user on the sales template sees this tab even though they cannot open the Warehouses window.

16. "Differences from the quote" on the order card

When you open an order derived from a quote, the Source / Change Chain section of the card shows a Differences from the quote box under the Quote row. When opened, the program matches quote lines to order lines by stock code and produces three lists: added, removed, changed (quantity, price, discount, VAT or unit). The header shows the total amount difference and the counts (+added −removed ~changed). If the same code appears on several lines they are matched in line order; expense lines are matched by description.

When it helps: when the customer asks "the quote said 10, why 12?" or a manager asks why the order exceeds the quote. If the quote was deleted the box says "source quote deleted"; if the order did not come from a quote the box is not shown at all.

17. Source and date of the exchange rate on a foreign-currency document

When a foreign-currency quote, order or invoice is written, the response carries a rate block: source, date, buying/selling rate and that day's central-bank (TCMB) buying/selling. The source is one of four: tcmb (the entered rate matched the central-bank rate exactly; the date is the bank's publication date), elle (you explicitly said "entered by hand"), ayar (it came from the company setting) or belge (unknown — the rate is on the document but its origin was not stated). TL documents have no block.

Why it matters: in an audit this answers "who wrote this rate, and for which day?". The source is not stored in the document table; the permanent trace lives in the audit log (Management › Audit). To see the source later, open the document's Document File. If no rate is given on a purchase document, the currency on the supplier card and the day's central-bank rate are used — details in the Purchasing guide.

18. "Invoice the ready-to-ship" — batch-invoicing the day's orders

A dispatcher's morning goes like this: "which orders are due today and have enough stock?" — then Invoice each one separately. The Invoice the ready-to-ship button in the Orders window does that job in a single window.

1. Pick a date (today by default). The list brings sales orders due on or before that day, with remaining quantity above zero and not cancelled.
2. Every row carries a stock badge: enough, short (which item, in which warehouse, how many missing) or unknown. Unknown appears when the line unit differs from the stock card's main unit — the program prefers a question mark to a wrong "enough".
3. The default selection is orders with enough stock. You may tick the short ones too; then you must leave the negative-stock approval and over-shipment approval boxes on at the bottom (same rule as the single-order gates in section 4.3).
4. Press Invoice. Orders are invoiced one after another; the result list shows, per order, the invoice number, delivery-note number, remaining info or the error message. If one fails the others continue — partial success is normal; read the list and fix the failed ones individually.

Permission: order and invoice write rights (same as single Invoice). Safety: a single-use key is generated when the window opens; a second click returns the same list with "already exists" and writes no second invoice. At most 200 orders are processed per run.