The pipeline in view at any time
How many prospects sit in which stage, you read off the funnel. An Excel list that someone has to maintain is no longer needed.
Sales controlling for professional services firms: pipeline, forecast and success in view.
In mid-sized companies, the question of how much revenue the next quarter will bring is often answered by gut feel. In teamspace sales controlling, a funnel maps every opportunity with its stage and probability; the revenue forecast follows from that.
Overview
What sales controlling makes visible.
Three things a professional services firm wants to know about its sales, without piecing spreadsheets together.
Anticipate revenue
From the stage and probability of every opportunity, a revenue forecast per quarter emerges, with drill-down to the individual opportunity.
Measure success
Which stage loses the most prospects and which customer brings contribution margin, the reports show at the touch of a button.
The funnel
Your sales process as a digital funnel.
Set up one or more funnels, each with its own stages and a probability per stage. Every sales opportunity has a target value and a stage; from these teamspace continuously calculates the current value and the forecast.
Anfrage 180 offen 15 %
Bedarf 76 offen 30 %
Angebot 28 offen 60 %
Verhandlung 14 offen 80 %
Auftrag 11 offen gewonnen
Wahrscheinlichkeit pro Phase
Umsatzprognose · Q3
- Offenes Volumen
- 620 k €
- Gewichtet
- 294 k €
Forecast Q3
294 k €
Die Wahrscheinlichkeit ist eine Schätzung, die Sie jederzeit anpassen.
Aus Phase, Wahrscheinlichkeit und Zielwert errechnet teamspace den aktuellen Wert jeder Chance.
Revenue forecast
The pipeline becomes the revenue forecast.
Through the funnel teamspace shows how many opportunities sit in the pipeline, with what value and what probability. From the sum, the expected revenue forecast for the quarter emerges, instead of a number from the head of the sales lead.
- Per opportunity you record the target value, revenue start, stage and probability. The current value is calculated automatically from target value times probability.
- With every stage change the probability value updates and with it the current value. If a prospect drops out or places an order, you record that in the status.
- Aggregated across the pipeline this gives the forecast per quarter, with drill-down to the individual opportunity.
teamspace runs the forecast through the funnel in the enterprise edition. Anyone who at first only needs activities and follow-ups on the contact stays in the office edition.
Conversions
See in which stage orders are lost.
You map the sales process one to one with the stages of the funnel. That way you can track how many prospects move on per stage and at which point most of them drop out.
- Analysis by stage: the distribution of opportunities per stage becomes visible, including the current value per stage.
- Where won, where lost: you read off the tightest point in the funnel, instead of guessing it in the quarterly meeting.
- CRM analysis: all activities by type over time, split by handler or customer, as a measure of sales effectiveness.
Whoever knows the weak stage aims their follow-up exactly where it fills the funnel again.
Requirements check
We look at your pipeline with you.
In 20 minutes we go through your funnel stages and probabilities and check which reports your sales lead really needs.
Analysis
Read the funnel from two angles.
The sales opportunity analysis answers two questions that active and future sales ask. teamspace keeps both apart, instead of mixing them into one number.
- Forward-looking: what does the current month bring, what do the next three? The analysis calculates over the revenue start, regardless of when an opportunity arose.
- In retrospect: what became of the opportunities that arose in May? Here only this vintage counts, up to the close or the cancellation.
- By sales representative: the same evaluation per handler. That way you learn from the strongest salesperson and see who leaves the expensive leads lying and therefore runs weaker rates.
Both time angles and the handler filter draw on the same sales opportunities, without anyone maintaining anything twice.
Care
Look after key accounts in a controlled way.
Sales controlling does not end with the forecast. teamspace also shows how well important customers are looked after and where the greatest potential lies.
VIPs and key accounts in view
- Mark customers as VIP or key account
- Key account manager with optional deputy per customer
- Track how well an account was looked after
ABC analysis per aspect
- Top 20 percent, middle 60, weakest 20
- Separately for sales, customer and supplier
- Rating basis freely selectable, such as revenue potential
Activity analysis
- How much was done per contact and activity type
- Activities of the key account managers visible
- Sales effectiveness readable over time
“Staff in both support and project planning can see orders and invoices. That was not possible before.”
Your own metrics
You calculate the value of an opportunity yourself.
Not every opportunity is worth the same, and not every order weighs the same. In teamspace you decide yourself how the value of a sales opportunity is calculated.
- Your own rules: take the order volume into account or weight individual line items more heavily, depending on what counts for your business.
- Maintenance weighs differently to a project: recurring line items can be rated higher than one-off ones.
- The weighted value flows straight into funnel and forecast, so the picture matches the reality of your firm.
That way sales controlling rates opportunities by your logic, not by an external standard formula.
Early warning
Spot order peaks and revenue gaps early.
Through the funnel you see not only where things stand today, but also what is coming towards the firm. How many closings are likely in which weeks becomes a preview of incoming orders.
- See peaks in time: if likely closings pile up, you plan the delivery teams before the orders arrive.
- Spot gaps early: if the funnel gets thin, no one brakes only once the revenue is already missing.
- Pipeline and delivery capacity belong together: anyone who permanently plans at the utilisation limit reconciles the preview with [capacity planning](/capacity-planning/).
That way the pipeline becomes an early warning system that makes bottlenecks and idle time visible in advance.
Scope of functions
What sales controlling evaluates.
Funnel, opportunities and reports mesh together. The evaluations arise from the same activities that sales works with anyway.
Funnel and opportunities
- Any number of funnels with their own stages
- Probability per stage, adjustable at any time
- Target value, revenue start and status per opportunity
- Current value calculated automatically
- Warning if no contact is made
- Value calculable by your own rules
Reports and analyses
- Sales opportunity report with value and stage
- Analysis of opportunities by stage
- CRM analysis: activities by type over time
- Customer analysis with contribution margin per customer
- ABC analysis for sales, customer and supplier
- Filter, drill-down to the data source and export
Steering
- Revenue forecast per quarter from the pipeline
- Order peaks and revenue gaps foreseeable
- Sales team view over opportunities and key accounts
- Reports saveable as a favourite and printable
- Further evaluation via Excel export or REST API
More from the CRM
Use cases around sales.
From the same contact base, several views emerge. These areas go deeper into individual questions around sales.
Digital customer record
Every touch chronologically on the organisation, from the email to the quote.
Learn moreContact management
Organisations and contacts maintained centrally, the basis of every evaluation.
Learn moreKey account management
Important customers with their own contact person and deputy.
Learn moreCampaign management
Mass mailings and campaigns to selected contacts, steered from the CRM.
Learn moreLead management
The lead becomes the activity, the open activity becomes the follow-up.
Learn moreWhat sales controlling is about
Put sales on numbers, not on hope.
A sales controlling makes the sales process measurable: it maps the pipeline with its stages, rates every opportunity by value and probability and derives a revenue forecast from that. So the question of how the quarter is going becomes an answer with a number instead of gut feel.
The difference to a plain contact list lies in the steering. When every opportunity carries a stage, a target value and a probability, management sees where revenue arises and where the funnel gets thin. The probability remains an estimate that sales is responsible for, not a prediction from pattern recognition.
The need becomes tangible as soon as several people steer the same sales and the revenue planning should no longer come from a private Excel spreadsheet. Funnel and forecast are the expansion stage of the enterprise edition in teamspace; the ABC and customer analyses carry the controlling even without them.
At a glance
Sales controlling is part of the CRM.
Funnel, opportunities and reports work with the same organisations, contacts and activities as the rest of the CRM. How teamspace runs the customer record, follow-ups and the connection to mail, phone and Teams is shown in the CRM software overview.
To the CRM softwareRelated modules
Three modules border on the CRM.
A won opportunity becomes an order, a project and an invoice. Here are the shortest paths there.
Project management
From the won order, the project emerges with budget, phases and team.
- Order becomes a project
- Plan-actual and forecast
- Team and phases in one place
Invoicing software
The quote becomes the invoice, with hourly rates, flat fees and e-invoice.
- Quote, order, invoice
- ZUGFeRD and XRechnung
- Handover to DATEV Unternehmen online
Service desk
A customer's enquiries run as tickets, with SLA and standard project on the contact.
- Tickets from mail and phone
- SLA per customer
- Standard project for bookings
Requirements check
Let us check whether teamspace makes your sales visible.
You show us your sales process, we tell you how teamspace maps pipeline, forecast and evaluation and which edition fits for it.
Frequently asked questions on sales controlling
How accurate is the revenue forecast?
The forecast is only as good as the pipeline maintenance. It aggregates target value times probability per opportunity across all open opportunities. With cleanly defined stages and regularly updated probabilities, the forecast moves towards reality. It remains an estimate, not a guarantee.
Where does the probability of an opportunity come from?
From the sales stage. Every stage carries a probability value; when an opportunity changes stage, the value updates and with it the current value. You can adjust the probability by hand at any time. teamspace does not derive it from pattern recognition, it remains the assessment of sales.
Can we run several sales funnels?
Yes. You set up any number of funnels, each with its own stages and its own probability per stage. That way you map different sales processes, such as for new and existing customers, separately.
Which reports does sales controlling offer?
The sales opportunity report with value and stage, the analysis of opportunities by stage, the CRM analysis of activities over time and the customer analysis with contribution margin per customer. All reports can be filtered, expanded down to the data source and exported. There is no freely buildable BI report designer; further evaluations run via Excel export or the REST API.
Do I need a specific edition for funnel and forecast?
The sales process with funnel and forecast belongs to the enterprise edition. The CRM core with organisations, contacts, activities and follow-ups as well as the ABC and customer analyses are included in the office edition.
Is sales controlling connected to capacity planning?
Pipeline and delivery capacity belong together thematically: anyone expecting many closings ahead should keep the utilisation of the teams in view. In the requirements check we show how the preview from the funnel can be placed alongside capacity planning.