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Corteza CRM

Corteza CRM is a highly flexible, scalable and open source Customer Relationship Management solution.

Home

The home page is accessible by clicking on the Home section in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

The homepage is the main dashboard for your business; it gives you a quick overview of the most important information in the CRM.

By default, it shows you essential statistics regarding your leads, a calendar with events, as well as lists of your new leads, key opportunities and tasks.

Leads

The Leads page is accessible by clicking on the Leads section in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

A lead (may also be referred to as prospect) is an individual who might become a customer but currently is not. They are usually converted into accounts, contacts and opportunities.

There are three pages dedicated to leads:

  • Leads shows all of the leads in the system,

  • All New Leads shows only the leads that have the New status,

  • My Leads shows only the leads assigned to you.

The typical process of handling a lead after it is inserted in the system is for the assigned salesperson to follow up on the lead. This salesperson can contact, and further qualify the lead.

Adding a new lead

  1. Navigate to the Leads,

  2. click on the + Add button to open the form,

  3. populate the data and press the Save button on the bottom right corner.

  • The rating field allows you to see which leads are qualified as good leads.

  • Try to retrieve as much relevant lead data as possible. It helps create interesting charts, such as leads per country or leads per industry.

  • Fill in the lead’s personal or company twitter profile. This allows you to see, directly in the lead record, a list of latest tweets from that profile.

  • You can create notes, events and tasks for a lead.

The conversion of a lead

A lead should be converted when there is a sales opportunity.

When a lead is converted, the generated contact is set as the primary contact for the account.
There are two options:

  • Converting the lead into an account when it shows some interest but it is not exactly clear what the sales opportunity is. This conversion creates an account and a contact for the lead. To use this conversion, navigate to Lead  select a lead and click on the Convert this Lead into an Account button.

  • Converting the lead into an account and opportunity when it shows some interest and you already have enough information about the sales opportunity. This conversion creates an account, a contact and an opportunity for this lead. To use this conversion navigate to Lead  select a lead and click on the Convert this Lead into an Account and Opportunity button.

Tips for determining the lead rating

If a lead shows commercial interest, such as a request for pricing, and the lead’s location matches the region your business targets, this lead could be considered a 5 star lead.

If a lead performs some additional interactions, such as going through a demo, they could be considered a 3 star lead.

If a lead contacts you, but it’s clear that there is no explicit business intention, it can be considered a 0 star or a 1 star lead.

Accounts

The Accounts page is accessible by clicking on the Accounts section in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

Accounts are entities (companies or other) that you currently do business with. Here you can store information such as the size of a company, opportunities and business contact information.

An account can be created either manually, or by converting a lead.

The most important block in accounts is opportunities as it expresses the potential of sales. To generate a new opportunity for the account, press the Create new Opportunity from this account button.

Other related blocks are:

  1. Contacts: all the contacts related to the account.

  2. Contracts: all contracts, active or inactive related to the account.

  3. Cases: all cases that are related to the account.

  4. Notes, Events and Tasks.

The primary contact provides contact information when generating documents such as quotes.

  • You can create new contracts for the account by pressing the "Create new Contract from this account" button.

  • You can create new cases for the account by pressing the "Create new Case from this account" button.

Adding a new account manually

  1. Navigate to the Accounts,

  2. click on the + Add button to open the form,

  3. populate the data and press the Save button on the bottom right corner.

Adding an opportunity for an account

  1. Navigate to the Accounts  select an account,

  2. click on the Create new Opportunity from this Account button.

Adding a contract for an account

  1. Navigate to the Accounts  select an account,

  2. click on the Create new Contract from this Account button.

Adding a case for an account

  1. Navigate to the Accounts  select an account,

  2. click on the Create new Case from this Account button.

Opportunities

The Opportunities page is accessible by clicking on the Opportunities section in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

An account can be created either manually, or by generating it from an account.

When generating an opportunity for a given account, you indicate that you have uncovered a potential future sale and thus potential revenue.

An opportunity name should be short and descriptive in order to identify what the opportunity is about quickly. to illustrate; "300 licenses" is a good example as it is short and straight to the point.

The default close date is set to one month after the opportunity is created (can be configured with settings).

The stage field allows you to identify what stage a given opportunity is in. When you create an opportunity, it is set to Qualification. Once correctly qualified, you can move it to Proposal (or to Need Analysis, if more analysis is needed). The last few steps are Negotiation, followed by Closed Won or Closed Lost.

Use the Contact Roles block to create a clear overview of the people related to the opportunity, including the contact data and role.

Adding a new opportunity manually

  1. Navigate to the Opportunities,

  2. click on the + Add button to open the form,

  3. populate the data and press the Save button on the bottom right corner.

Adding products and updating amounts

  1. Navigate to the Opportunities  select an opportunity,

  2. select a price book,

  3. add products by clicking on the + Add button in the "products" block,

  4. click on the Update prices of Products by applying the selected Price Book and inserted discounts button,

  5. press the Save button on the bottom right corner.

You only have to insert the quantity and optionally the discount for a product. Other fields are filled in automatically.

You can overwrite the list price of the product by inserting a different sales price manually.

Generating a quote for the opportunity

  1. Navigate to the Opportunities  select an opportunity,

  2. click on the Create a new Quote for this opportunity button.

Tips for the qualification of leads

It is useful to reflect upon the following data:

  • budget: check whether there is a budget,

  • authority: check if you are able to communicate with the decision-makers,

  • need: check if there is an actual need for the product/service,

  • timeline: check on what timeline the product/service needs to be delivered or implemented, and if this timeline is compatible with your capabilities,

  • competition: check with whom you are competing.

Tasks

The Tasks page is accessible by clicking on the Tasks section in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

Tasks allow you to keep track of pending tasks that need to be handled and are displayed in the list or on the calendar on the homepage. Tasks can refer to leads, accounts, contacts, opportunities, quotes, or contracts.

Make sure to mark the task as "closed" once it has been completed.

Adding a new custom task

  1. Navigate to the Tasks,

  2. click on the + Add button to open the form,

  3. populate the data and press the Save button on the bottom right corner.

Adding a new task for a lead

  1. Navigate to the Leads  select a lead,

  2. scroll down to the "tasks" page block,

  3. click on the + Add button.

Adding a new task for an account

  1. Navigate to the Accounts  select an account,

  2. scroll down to the "tasks" page block,

  3. click on the + Add button.

Adding a new task for a contact

  1. Navigate to the Contacts  select a contact,

  2. scroll down to the "tasks" page block,

  3. click on the + Add button.

Adding a new task for an opportunity

  1. Navigate to the Opportunities  select an opportunity,

  2. scroll down to the "tasks" page block,

  3. click on the + Add button.

Adding a new task for a quote

  1. Navigate to the Quotes  select a quote,

  2. scroll down to the "tasks" page block,

  3. click on the + Add button.

Adding a new task for a contract

  1. Navigate to the Contracts  select a contract,

  2. scroll down to the "tasks" page block,

  3. click on the + Add button.

Campaigns

The Campaigns page is accessible by clicking on the Campaigns section in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

A campaign is a planned marketing project that you want to manage and keep track of from within the CRM. This allows you to analyze different business strategies and analyze which one is the most effective.

A campaign can be anything; a simple newsletter, seminar, conference, or any other type of marketing initiative.

Leads, contacts, accounts and opportunities are related to campaigns as campaign members. The campaign - opportunity relationship allows you to calculate values such as the ROI (Return of Investment) based on the campaign cost and the expected revenue.

The CRM creates the numbers that compare the costs to the value of the won opportunities.

Try to bind all of your leads with campaigns. Upon lead conversion, the campaigns are mapped to the account and opportunity, allowing you to define the ROI of your lead generation activities.

Adding a new campaign

  1. Navigate to the Campaigns,

  2. click on the + Add button to open the form,

  3. populate the data and press the Save button in the bottom right corner.

Quotes

The Quotes page is accessible by clicking on the Quotes section in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

A quote can be created either manually, or by generating it from an opportunity. An opportunity can have multiple quotes. A quote allows you to complete the payment and thus charge the customer.

Corteza does not implement a payment mechanism. You should use an external provider.

Products in an opportunity are inserted as quote line items.

Quote bill to, quote to and ship to information are retrieved from the related account.

Adding a new quote manually

  1. Navigate to the Quotes,

  2. click on the + Add button to open the form,

  3. populate the data and press the Save button in the bottom right corner.

Sending the quote to a primary contact

  1. Navigate to the Opportunities  select an opportunity,

  2. click on the Send this Quote via email to the primary contact button.

Sending the quote to a custom contact

  1. Navigate to the Opportunities  select an opportunity,

  2. click on the Send this Quote to a custom email button,

  3. insert the email address into the requested prompt window and press Submit.

Products

The Products page is accessible by clicking on the Products section in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

Here you can manage all of your company’s products and services. Each product has a description and related files. The cost of the product is determined by the price book. The product can be linked to cases.

The cost is determined by the price book, not by the product itself.

Adding a new product

  1. Navigate to the Products,

  2. click on the + Add button to open the form,

  3. populate the data and press the Save button on the bottom right corner.

Price book

The price book page is accessible by clicking on the Products  Price book section in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

Your company may have different price books depending on the region and client organization type.

The price book determines how much the product or service costs. When creating an opportunity, product prices and the totals are calculated based on the selected price book.

Adding a new price book entry

  1. Navigate to the Products  Price book  select a price book,

  2. click on the + Add button on the price book entries page block,

  3. populate the data and press the Save button on the bottom right corner.

If you wish to add multiple price book entries at the same time, click on the Edit button in the bottom right corner. This allows you to add multiple price book entries at the same time.

Dashboards

The Dashboards page is accessible by clicking on the Dashboards section in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

Dashboards help you to visually understand changing business conditions so you can make decisions based on the real-time data of your CRM.

Corteza CRM comes built-in with a handful of predefined dashboards that should give you enough understanding about the business. Refer to the Low-Code Platform Developer Guide  Low Code configuration if you wish to add additional dashboards.

You can include social media feeds with your dashboards. Refer to the Low-Code Platform Developer Guide  Low Code configuration for more information.

Cases

The Cases page is accessible by clicking on the Mode  Cases section in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

The Corteza CRM implements a simplified case management tool. It allows you to keep track of various customer complaints, disputes or similar.

The CRM and the Case Management do not share data.

Cases can be linked to accounts, contacts, products or even to other cases.

You can define who is part of the case, what role they have, keep track of the progress, assign tasks and add notes.

You can store a resolved case as a "Solution". Solutions help you to solve similar (future) cases with ease.

Adding a new case

  1. Navigate to the More  Cases,

  2. click on the + Add button to open the form,

  3. populate the data and press the Save button on the bottom right corner.

Marking the case as "in progress"

  1. Navigate to the More  Cases  select a case,

  2. click on the Set Case status to Working.

Marking the case as "closed"

  1. Navigate to the More  Cases  select a case,

  2. click on the Set Case status to Closed.

Sharing the progress to a contact

  1. Navigate to the More  Cases  select a case,

  2. click on the Inform the contact via email of the Case solution.

Events

The Events page is accessible by clicking on the Events section in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

Events help you stay organized by keeping track of the things you should do.

You can access your events either from the Events page or from the homepage. They are also accessible from any other page that allows events; such as leads and opportunities.

Adding a new custom event

  1. Navigate to the Tasks,

  2. click on the + Add button to open the form,

  3. populate the data and press the Save button on the bottom right corner.

Adding a new event for a lead

  1. Navigate to the Leads  select a lead,

  2. scroll down to the "events" page block,

  3. click on the + Add button.

Adding a new event for an account

  1. Navigate to the Accounts  select an account,

  2. scroll down to the "events" page block,

  3. click on the + Add button.

Adding a new event for a contact

  1. Navigate to the Contacts  select a contact,

  2. scroll down to the "events" page block,

  3. click on the + Add button.

Adding a new event for an opportunity

  1. Navigate to the Opportunities  select an opportunity,

  2. scroll down to the "events" page block,

  3. click on the + Add button.

Adding a new event for a quote

  1. Navigate to the Quotes  select a quote,

  2. scroll down to the "events" page block,

  3. click on the + Add button.

Adding a new event for a contract

  1. Navigate to the Contracts  select a contract,

  2. scroll down to the "events" page block,

  3. click on the + Add button.