Configure the CRM for your company

CRM settings decide how the CRM behaves for your whole company. Most companies set them once before go-live and revisit them rarely. Each setting applies to every user, so change them with the sales and finance managers.

Before you start

• You need the permission to change CRM settings. Without it the page opens read-only.

• Agree the credit-limit policy and the data retention period with finance first.

Change the general settings

1. Open CRM › Settings & Data › CRM Settings. The page opens on the General tab.

1. Change the settings you need in the sections described below.

2. Select Save at the top of the page. The system confirms with Settings saved.

Pipeline and conversion

• Lead conversion decides what converting a lead does:

  • Create a customer (current behaviour): the lead becomes a customer straight away, with a ledger account, and optionally an opportunity.

  • Create an account first, no finance record: the lead becomes an organisation, which can be promoted to a customer later. A duplicate check runs first. See convert a lead.

• Count one opportunity per scope package in pipeline totals: for project work, where several deals can be raised for the same package, the pipeline totals count it once.

Record visibility

• Show a user only the tickets they own and Show a user only the contracts they own restrict each user to the service requests and contracts they are responsible for. Users who may view all records still see everything.

Automation

• Days before expiry to raise a renewal opportunity: 90 by default. Before a contract ends, the system opens a renewal opportunity this many days ahead.

• Document expiry reminders (days): 30, 14, 7 by default. Comma separated. A reminder is sent once at each value, not every day in between.

Offers and awards

• Every offer needs approval: when no approval rule matches an offer, it still waits for one approver (anyone who may approve offers, except its creator) instead of being approved on submission.

• Revision labels: Numbers (Rev 1, Rev 2) or Letters (Rev A, Rev B). The first issue is always Rev 0; only the display changes.

• Draft an award when a deal is won: Default, Always on or Always off. When off, an award can still be created by hand from the won opportunity.

• Accepting an offer wins its opportunity: when the customer accepts an offer, its open opportunity is marked won.

Service visits

• Generate visits this many days ahead: 30 by default (1 to 366). The daily job creates each maintenance plan's visits up to this horizon.

• Days before a visit counts as missed: 3 by default (0 to 60). A scheduled visit not done by then is marked missed and the office is alerted.

Customer data

• Marketing consent: Opt-in required (the default) sends marketing only to people who agreed; Opt-out (objections honoured) sends it to everyone except objections and do-not-contact. See marketing consent.

• Credit limit: what a credit sale past the customer's limit does: Not checked, Warn (the default) or Block (manager can override). See customer status and credit limit.

• Retention period (years): years after the last invoice before a person's data is anonymised. Leave it empty until finance confirms the period: nothing is anonymised while it is empty.

Industry pack

An industry pack installs ready-made lists and a sales pipeline for a line of business. Choose the pack, select Preview install to see how many entries will be added and how many already exist, then Install. A pack only adds: nothing you already have is changed, deactivated or removed. If the server has pack installation turned off, the page says so.

The other tabs

Tender checklist, Offer approval rules and Integrations are described in advanced CRM settings.

Common questions

We changed the conversion setting. What happens to leads already converted? Nothing. The setting applies to conversions made from now on.

Does Opt-in stop invoices from being e-mailed? No. Consent applies to marketing only, never to invoices, statements or service notices.