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Build your sales funnel: pipelines, stages and deals

Updated 2026-10-09

In two lines: your funnel is the stages each deal moves through until it closes. In CRM > Settings > Sales > Pipelines you get the funnel defined —stages, currency, probabilities and alerts—; then, in CRM > Pipelines, you drag the deals from one stage to the next.

How do I define my process's stages?

The stages that come preloaded are a starting point, not your process. Adapt them to how you really sell.

  • Go to CRM > Settings > Sales > Pipelines and open your pipeline to edit it. If you've never touched it, edit the one that already exists instead of creating a new one.
  • In the Stages block, rename each one in the Name column so it reflects your sales process (for example: First contact, Proposal sent, Negotiation, Close).
  • Use Add stage to add the ones you're missing, and drag them into the order they really happen.

You need at least two stages. If you sell different services with different processes, you can have more than one pipeline with New pipeline and move a deal from one to another when needed; Set as default marks which one is the main one, the one proposed when you don't choose another.

A deal moved to another pipeline leaves the first pipeline's funnel: it counts in the destination's statistics, not where it started, so the conversion rates between stages of the two pipelines can't be pieced together afterwards. If you don't want to lose that statistic, either work with a single pipeline or create the deal again in the new pipeline and leave the original one where it was.
Fewer, clearer stages work better than many. Each stage should represent a real change in the conversation, not an internal nuance.

What else does each pipeline define, besides the stages?

Four controls in the same editor. None of them throws an error if it's set wrong: you notice later, when the numbers don't add up.

Default currency, in the pipeline's Configuration block. It's the currency of every new deal in that pipeline, of the Forecast and of all the totals. It comes in dollars. Change it before creating your first deal: each deal stores the currency it was created with, so the ones that already exist don't change on their own and fixing them later is manual work, one by one.

Probability %, the second column of the stages table. It's the typical close percentage for each stage, and it's what feeds the Weighted value of the Forecast (each deal inherits it from its stage). Without your own percentages that projection tells you nothing useful: load them based on what really happens, not on what you'd like.

Days until stalled, the third column. It's how many days a deal can sit in that stage without advancing before it's marked as stalled (the count starts when it enters the stage and only resets when it moves to another). It's the alert that warns you about a forgotten deal before it goes cold, and nothing replaces it: without it, a deal can sit still for months and nobody notices. Then you spot them by the flame icon next to the deal —amber once two thirds of those days have gone by (At risk), red once they're up (Stalled)— and filter them by Stalled —Fresh, At risk, Stalled— in your deals.

Won stage, the trophy at the end of each row. It marks which one is your closing stage: there's only one per pipeline, and when you win a deal the system moves it there on its own.

The editor also has the Sales rep access block, which decides which sales reps see that pipeline. It starts on Every sales rep can view and work this pipeline; the switch changes it to Only the selected sales reps, where everyone starts on View and work and you lower whoever needs it to View only or No access (with Apply to all you change them all at once). It only counts if you turned on Sales rep scope; Managers and CRM Admins always see every pipeline, and each sales rep always sees their own deals. When it's worth it and what each level allows: CRM roles and permissions: what each sales rep can see and do.

In that same editor you define the pipeline's Lost reasons, with Add reason. They belong to each pipeline, and they're the ones you pick when you Mark lost to understand where your opportunities fall through. Finish with Save changes.

Don't create a "Lost" stage. In MB Suite losing isn't a stage: the lost deal keeps the stage it was in, and that's how you can see at which point of the funnel people drop off. If you create it, you hide that data from yourself.
Days until stalled are thought out per stage, not the same for all. A stage where you're waiting for the client's reply tolerates more days than one where the ball is in your court.

How do I work deals in the funnel?

A deal is a sales opportunity. You move it through the stages as it advances. The same funnel is viewed in several ways, depending on what you need. In CRM > Pipelines you have three views:

  • Kanban — the board of columns by stage. Drag the deal from one column to another to advance it. If a column is long, you see its first cards and the rest wait behind Show N more, at the bottom of the column, next to Show all to open it in one click (Show less folds it back): the count and the total at the top include every deal in the column, and the search and the filters also reach the ones you can't see.
  • Forecast — projects the close based on each deal's value and stage. This is where it shows whether you loaded the Probability %.
  • Calendar — organizes the deals by date.

And in CRM > Deals you have the Spreadsheet: an editable table, useful for updating many deals quickly. The board, the forecast and the calendar live in CRM > Pipelines: they're views of the same funnel, not separate copies.

If a pipeline has more deals than the screen loads at once, a notice appears above the view —the same one as in the spreadsheet— and Load all brings in the rest (in large accounts it can take a little longer). Until you press it, the board, the calendar, the search and the filters only work with the deals that came in.

Create deal asks for the title, value, stage and owner, and also the Company and the Primary person: pick them from the list or create them right there by typing the name (the person inherits the chosen company, and picking a person fills in their company). A deal born with its contact shows up on the contact's record and fires the automations that wait for a new deal. Export, in the spreadsheet's toolbar, downloads what's on screen: the rows you ticked or, if none, the filtered ones, with the visible columns in their order and readable names (pipeline, stage, owner, lost reason with its note), plus your custom fields and labels.

In Deals, in the Kanban and in the Calendar, the toolbar carries a Status selector, and it means the same in all three: Open —the default, what's in play—, Won, Lost, All —the three of them together— and, after the divider, Archived — deals you set aside without deleting them (archiving keeps everything and you can restore whenever you want; Delete takes the deal out of the CRM, and for 30 days it can still be restored from the Trash), and they never count inside All. Forecast has no selector: it always projects open deals only, so the projection isn't inflated by what's already closed.

Set the board to Lost and you see at which stage each opportunity fell through, with the funnel columns as the map; in Won, where they closed. Closed and archived deals show up but can't be dragged —their stage is the one recorded when they closed—: if you need to work one again, open it and use Reopen deal, or Restore if it was archived. With Sales rep scope on, a sales rep can't drag someone else's deals either, nor the unassigned ones in a pipeline where they're on View only: they can open them, not move them.

Each deal carries its Deal value and its Currency, so you see the money at stake in each stage. The currency comes from the pipeline, and you can change it on that specific deal if that sale goes in another one.

New prospects don't carry a currency of their own yet, so you decide the one they're shown in. In CRM > Settings > Sales > Pipelines, the Prospects card sets the default Currency for new prospects and anything not yet in a pipeline. It starts from your Workspace's main currency; change it and it stays saved, so your inbox stops showing in a currency that isn't yours.
The Pipelines board has the same advanced filters as the spreadsheet: filter by any field —including the created date— and reuse your saved filters across both views. You can also sort by your Custom fields, and the deals show a Phone column: click the number to call or open WhatsApp without leaving the CRM. And you choose what each card shows: from Card fields you turn lines on and off, including the campaign, the ad and the form the deal came from — see Attribution: which campaign generated each sale (real ROAS).

What can I manage inside each deal?

Each deal brings all its information together in one place: when you open it you see its history, its data and the actions to work it. From its record you can:

  • Leave notes. In the Notes tab you log each conversation or agreement, so the context doesn't live only in your head.
  • Move the deal between stages. Drag it between columns in Kanban to advance it, or use Move to other pipeline when the process changes (keeping in mind what that does to the statistics, explained above).
  • Reassign the deal to another salesperson. With Reassign owner you pass the opportunity to another person on the team.
  • Add products and calculate the value. In the Quote tab you add lines from your Products catalog (or a Free line) with quantity, price and discount, and MB Suite calculates the Deal value automatically. That same quote can be downloaded as a branded PDF to send to the client: see Send a professional quote in PDF from the deal. To manage that catalog (and connect an ecommerce feed), see Products and catalogs: your manual list and synced feeds.
To adapt the deal to your operation, go to CRM > Settings > Custom fields and add the specific data you record on each deal. The Lost reasons, on the other hand, live inside each pipeline's editor, because each funnel loses for different reasons.

What's next?

To work a deal in depth —history, activities and agenda—, go to Manage a deal: history, activities and agenda.

If you're setting up the CRM from scratch, this funnel is part of a bigger order: Set up the CRM foundations: team, funnel and custom fields.

Still have questions?

Ask MIA, the MB Suite AI assistant: open it with the MB AI button (⌘J) in the top bar. MIA knows the section you're in, so you can ask it about what you see on screen — and it can also answer how-to questions about using MB Suite.