How to build your first sales pipeline

A pipeline is a sequence of named stages that a deal moves through. NerdCRM ships a default pipeline; you can edit it, replace it, or run multiple pipelines side-by-side (one per product line, one per region, etc).

Admins and owners build pipelines in Settings → Pipelines & stages. The stage editor is a computer screen, so do this part on a laptop or desktop; on a phone the page shows a read-only list.

Step 1 — Open Pipelines & stages

Go to Settings → Pipelines & stages. Each pipeline has a tab at the top, with its number of stages. (Pipeline in the sidebar, under Sell, opens the board you used last, and the default pipeline the first time. Click the pipeline’s name at the top of the board and choose All pipelines to land on this same page.)

Click New pipeline to start one. To change an existing one, pick its tab, or choose Edit pipeline from the name menu on its board.

Step 2 — Pick a template (or start blank)

The New pipeline dialog opens with Start from templates:

• Phone-heavy sales — Leads → Connected → Demo done → On trial → Completed, plus the lost reasons Not interested and Number off
• Customer onboarding — Demo booked → Demo done → Trial → Onboarding → Customer
• Blank — just a Won stage and a Lost stage

Templates are a starting point; you can rename, reorder, add, or delete stages after picking one. Click Create pipeline and the new pipeline opens as a tab on Pipelines & stages.

Step 3 — Define each stage

Every stage is one row in the stage table. For each, set:

• Name — what reps see on the board
• Type — Open, Won or Lost (see below)
• Win chance — the percentage used for the weighted figure at the top of the board (for example, On trial at 70% means we expect 70% of its value to land)

Order is the order of the list: drag the handle at the left of a row to move a stage (or focus the handle and press the up and down arrow keys). The Deals column shows how many deals each stage holds. There is no colour to pick. Open stages get darker as deals move forward, won is green and lost is grey. Click + Add stage to add a row; it goes after your last open stage.

The three types:

• Open — a deal still in progress. A column on the board.
• Won — a deal that closed. Always 100%. Also a column on the board.
• Lost — a deal that fell through. Always 0%. Lost stages are not columns: they sit in a Closed · lost area at the end of the board, and each one is a reason.

Win chance shouldn’t go down from one open stage to a later one, and a pipeline needs at least one Won stage so deals can be closed as won. If a list breaks either rule, a banner says so. Fix automatically only changes win chances: it shows the changes it would make (lost to 0%, won to 100%, an open stage raised to the one before it). A missing Won stage is flagged in the banner too, but you add it yourself: click + Add stage and set its type to Won. Fixes go into the form first; nothing is saved until you click Save changes.

To remove a stage, open the menu on its row and choose Delete stage. If the stage still has deals, NerdCRM asks which stage to move them to first, and moves them right away.

Step 4 — Decide who works it, then save

Below the stage table:

• Who works this pipeline — members and read-only people see only the pipelines they are added to. Click Add to add someone, or the remove button on their name. Admins and owners always see every pipeline. Each change is saved at once.
• Pipeline details — open it for the Name, the Description and the Active switch (switch it off to take a pipeline out of use without deleting it). Set as default makes it the pipeline NerdCRM opens first, and where a deal starts when you add it to a pipeline from its own page. It takes effect at once, as does Delete pipeline (the default pipeline can’t be deleted).

Changes to the stages, name, description and Active switch are kept with Save changes, in the bar that appears at the bottom of the page. If you change the type of a stage that has deals, NerdCRM asks you to confirm when you save: those deals will be counted as won, lost or open in reports, and it says how many.

Step 5 — Add deals

Click New deal at the top of a board, use Deals → New deal, or add one from a contact or company page:

• Pick the contact and company
• Pick the pipeline and the starting stage
• Add the value, and assign an owner (rep)
• Add an expected close date

The deal appears in its stage’s column immediately. Drag cards between columns, or open a deal and click a stage on its stage bar. A deal’s page also has a Pipeline panel that names its pipeline, with Open board and Move to another pipeline.

Closing deals

• Won — drag the card to a Won column, or open the deal and click Mark won.
• Lost — drop the card on a reason in Closed · lost, or open the deal, click Mark lost and pick a Reason. The reason is the name of the lost stage, so you can see why deals are lost.

Multiple pipelines

You can run as many pipelines as you want. Common patterns:

• One pipeline per product line, so the board is clean per product
• One pipeline per region or KAM, when team workflows differ
• A separate Renewals pipeline that’s distinct from new business

Tips

• Keep stages concrete and verb-shaped (Demo done beats Engaged)
• 5–7 open stages is a good range; more than 10 starts to slow reps down
• Do add lost stages. Two or three honest reasons (Not interested, Number off, Chose a competitor) make “why did we lose this?” a single click on Mark lost

Need ideas? The live demo ships with a fully populated phone-heavy pipeline you can poke at without signup.