{"id":852,"date":"2011-05-16T03:37:22","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T11:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vtiger.com\/blogs\/2011\/05\/16\/do-we-really-need-a-separate-leads-module\/"},"modified":"2011-05-16T03:37:22","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T11:37:22","slug":"do-we-really-need-a-separate-leads-module","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/two.vtiger.com\/blog\/archives\/do-we-really-need-a-separate-leads-module\/","title":{"rendered":"Do we really need a separate Leads module?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we worked with clients in the past few years, we have often seen users ask ( <a href=\"https:\/\/discussions.vtiger.com\/index.php?p=\/discussion\/34333\">1<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/discussions.vtiger.com\/index.php?p=\/discussion\/40458\">2<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/discussions.vtiger.com\/index.php?p=\/discussion\/21481\">3<\/a>) when to create a Lead record and when to create an Account or Contact or Potential (aka Opportunity) records. The usual questions are:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Should i import my prospects as <span class=\"il\">Leads<\/span> or Contacts?<\/li>\n<li>When should i convert a Lead to a Potential?<\/li>\n<li>What happens to all the data in the Lead, and the related activities, emails,..etc, when i convert?<\/li>\n<li>Can i convert a Potential to an Account?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Roots of the confusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Duplication of Data &#8211; Lead and Contact records for the most part have similar information (First name, Last name, Company name, ..etc).So, prospects could be imported as <span class=\"il\">Leads<\/span> or Contacts which causes confusion.<\/li>\n<li>Meaning of &#8216;Account&#8217; &#8211; In a CRM, an <em>&#8216;Account&#8217;<\/em> represents a Business (Organization). In an Accounting application,\u00a0 an <em>Account <\/em>is usually reserved to a paying Customer. Users influenced by the Accounting apps, do not tend to create an Account record unless the sale is completed. This is obviously not the way it should be. An Account (&amp; Contact &amp; Potential) should be created at the start of the Sales Cycle<\/li>\n<li>Process duplication &#8211; Potential (or Opportunity as other CRMs call it) is used to manage a sales opportunity and includes Sales Stage field to track the status of the sale. At the same time, Lead also has a Lead Status such as Cold, Hot, &#8230;etc and customers could add their own choices. Users could potentially use either Lead or Potential to track the sales process<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Recommended Solution<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The purpose of the <span class=\"il\">Leads<\/span> module can be served with Contacts module as well. The <span class=\"il\">Leads<\/span> Status field could be replaced with Contact Status field in the Contact and could be used in its place.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Future Plan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As we work on improving the usability, we are considering the following changes in a future version of vtiger CRM.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Merge the <span class=\"il\">Leads<\/span> module with Contacts module (for existing installations, <span class=\"il\">Leads<\/span> data will be migrated to Contacts as part of migration script)<\/li>\n<li>Rename Accounts to Businesses<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>We would like to get your feedback on this. Please share your thoughts in the comments below.<\/p>\n<p>Update: Links in the post broke with shift of forums site. Revised on March 22, 2016 to update the links.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we worked with clients in the past few years, we have often seen users ask ( 1, 2, 3) when to create a Lead record and when to create an Account or Contact or Potential (aka Opportunity) records. The usual questions are: Should i import my prospects as Leads or Contacts? When should i&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/two.vtiger.com\/blog\/archives\/do-we-really-need-a-separate-leads-module\/\" class=\"\" rel=\"bookmark\">.<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Do we really need a separate Leads module?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Do we really need a separate Leads module? - Vtiger CRM Blog - Latest CRM Topics, Tips, Insights and Updates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/two.vtiger.com\/blog\/do-we-really-need-a-separate-leads-module\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do we really need a separate Leads module? - Vtiger CRM Blog - Latest CRM Topics, Tips, Insights and Updates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As we worked with clients in the past few years, we have often seen users ask ( 1, 2, 3) when to create a Lead record and when to create an Account or Contact or Potential (aka Opportunity) records. 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The usual questions are: Should i import my prospects as Leads or Contacts? 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