A lead is a prospect you are not yet trading with. It holds both the person and the company they represent, so nothing has to be split across two records before you know whether the business is real.
Creating a lead
CRM → Leads → Add Lead.
The person
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| First name, Last name | The contact you are dealing with. |
| Email, Phone number | How you reach them. |
| Country | Their country. |
The company they represent
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Company name | Required before the lead can be qualified. |
| Company phone, Company email | The switchboard, as opposed to your contact's direct line. |
| CR number | Commercial registration number. |
| VAT ID | Required before the lead can be qualified, unless the client type is Foreigner. |
| Company classification | How you grade the prospect. |
| Company address | One or more addresses. |
| Client type | Business, Personal or Foreigner. |
Qualification data
| Field | Values |
|---|---|
| Lead source | Sales effort or Marketing data collection — how the lead reached you. |
| Status | New, Accepted, Rejected. |
| Salesperson | The user who owns it. |
| Rejection reason | Free text, for leads you turn down. |
Status
A lead is New when created. It becomes Accepted automatically when you qualify it. Rejected is for prospects you have decided not to pursue — record the rejection reason, because a lead you reject today is one someone will ask about in six months.
Assigning a salesperson
Assign an owner from the lead itself. This is a distinct action from editing, so it can be granted to a sales manager without giving them the right to change lead data.
Attaching documents
Leads carry attached documents — trade licences, company profiles, signed NDAs. Upload from the lead, and remove them the same way. Attachments belong to the lead and travel with it.
Recording what happened
Every call and visit should be logged as an activity, not left in someone's inbox. See Activities and notes.
Qualifying a lead into a company
The Qualify button converts the lead into a company you can quote and invoice. It is the hand-off from sales to operations.
Checks run before conversion, and each produces an on-screen message rather than a silent failure:
- Company name must be present — Company name is required to create the company.
- VAT ID must be present — VAT Id is required to create the company — unless the client type is Foreigner, where it is not expected.
- Either a phone number or an email must be present.
- The VAT ID must not already belong to a company.
The fourth is the useful one, and the message tells you what to do instead: "VAT ID already exists. You can add contact for the company instead."
This means the customer is already trading with you under another name or another salesperson. Converting would create a duplicate company and split the account's history. Find the existing company and add this person as a contact on it — see Contacts — or attach a new customer profile if it is genuinely a separate arrangement.
Email addresses and phone numbers are also unique: "Email already exists", "Phone number already exists". The same reasoning applies — a collision usually means the record is already in the system.
Country, customer group, payment terms, email format and postal code format are each validated, and the message names the field that failed.
After conversion the lead's status becomes Accepted, the Qualify button is disabled, and the button itself reads Accepted. Conversion happens once; a lead is not qualified twice.
The new company appears under CRM → Companies, where the commercial terms that matter for trading — payment type, credit limit, customer group — are filled in. See Companies.
Importing leads from a spreadsheet
The leads list has an Import Excel action for bulk loading. The importer maps by column heading, so the headings must match exactly:
| Spreadsheet column | Maps to |
|---|---|
Company Name | Company name |
First Name, Last Name | Contact name |
Email | |
Business Phone | Phone number |
Company Phone | Company phone |
CR Number | CR number |
VAT ID | VAT ID |
National Id | National ID |
Address 1 | Company address |
Country/Region | Country |
Language, Currency | Language, currency |
Status Reason | Status — lower-cased; blank becomes New |
Lead Source | Lead source — blank becomes Sales effort |
Owning Business Unit | Owning legal entity |
Practical advice: import a handful of rows first. A heading that does not match is not reported as an error — that column simply arrives empty, and you find out later when a lead cannot be qualified for want of a VAT ID.
Last updated 13 September 2026