some general questions about how to use espo

[vampke]

Hello,
I have been using espocrm for 2 years now and really like how it works.
However I feel I am not getting the most out of it and have a few questions I am hoping someone would be so kind to answer:
1. How can you track the sales process? I understand that you can change opportunities whenever needed but is there a way to make a statistic out of this? Are changes to opportunities tracked and is it possible to make statistics out of conversions?

2. Is anyone using leads at all and what for? I only use opportunities, I do not see a difference between a lead and an opportunity although there are some things that a lead contains that I would like to see in tthe opportunities.

3. How do you use accounts vs contacts? I use accounts for businesses I do business with and contacts for people that may work for an item in accounts. Contacts do not necessarily have a corresponding account though (eg.: self employed or private customers). Is this how everybody uses it or am I missing a crucial aspect? Maybe Accounts is really intended for people that actually bought something and can contacts turn into an account?


Kind regards,

v.

[tanya]

Hi,
1) you add several charts on the dashboard or you can use Report featute for this. If you don't have needed field, like time, when in opportunity is changed the status to some value, you can add it in Entity Manager

https://www.espocrm.com/video/reports-and-analytics/

https://www.espocrm.com/video/export-reports-to-excel-format/

https://www.espocrm.com/video/entity-manager/

2) lead is like potential client. You know some information (like company name, or person name, or email address), but it isn't your client yet. When you want to turn this potential client to the needed entity, you can convert it. With convert you can create up to 3 needed entity: Account, Contact, Opportunity.

3) Accounts are like companies, contacts are like people: employees of these companies or just clients without accounts.

Regards,
Tanya

[vampke]

Hi Tanya, thank you for your reply.
1. I understand correctly that the report feature is part of the advanced pack?
2. In my view a lead is always linked to a contact and a contact is not necessarily a customer. But that is probably just how I use the system.
3. Ok

[tanya]

1. Yes
You can test it and look at the demo data (Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, etc)

http://demo.espocrm.de/advanced/