Pipelines, Deals & Payments

Gordon CRM includes a visual sales pipeline engine that lets teams track revenue opportunities from initial lead to closed won. You can track progress on a Kanban board, schedule payment milestones, and automate follow-ups.

Note: This is a module-gated feature. It must be enabled per workspace by a system administrator in the Workspace Settings view. When disabled, the Deals link in the sidebar and all related UI elements are hidden.

Pipelines & Stages

A pipeline represents your sales process. You can create multiple pipelines for different purposes (e.g., "Enterprise Sales", "Partner Recruiting"). Each pipeline contains an ordered set of stages (e.g., Lead → Proposal → Negotiation).

Managing Pipelines

To create or edit a pipeline, you must be an Admin or Owner.

1. Navigate to Deals (labeled Pipelines & Deals in the breadcrumbs) in the sidebar.
2. Dashboard Actions: On desktop, the pipeline action buttons are positioned side-by-side in the top-right header:
   • + New Deal (Primary): This button is on the far right.
   • New Pipeline (Secondary): This button is on the left.
   • Mobile View: Action buttons consolidate into a single + floating menu trigger designed for touchscreens, featuring custom icons.
3. Click New Pipeline to open the creation form. On desktop, this opens a standard form, while on mobile it slides up as a touch-responsive bottom form with top rounded corners. Submit buttons follow a standard "Save New Pipeline" (transitioning to a disabled "Saving..." state on click) naming convention.
4. Newly created pipelines automatically initialize with three default stages (Lead, Proposal, Negotiation).
5. From a pipeline's Kanban board, click Manage to rename the pipeline, add new stages, or reorder and delete existing stages.

Pipeline Automation & Dependencies

Pipelines support the CRM's dependency tracking system to show you where your sales workflows are integrated with automations:

• Automation Count Badges: Pipeline cards on the main Deals dashboard display a yellow ⚡ N badge if they or their stages are referenced by any active automation rules (e.g. triggering an email when a deal is marked "Won").
• Dependencies View: Clicking the badge opens a details view detailing the related automation rules in conversational English (e.g. showing which rule "Starts an automation" or is the "Result of an automation").

The Kanban Board

The Kanban board is your primary workspace for a pipeline. It displays deals as cards organized into columns by stage.

[SCREENSHOT PLACEHOLDER: Kanban board showing deals in various stages with total values in column headers]

• Desktop Layout — Uses a vertical layout with auto-scaling columns to prevent screen jitter and page scrolling.
• Fluid Drag-and-Drop — Built using standard web drag-and-drop technology, utilizing stationary placeholders and guards to prevent screen flickering during card movements.
• Visual Feedback — Cards feature smooth styling, grab-to-drag cursor shapes, and subtle borders on dragover.
• Options Menu (three dots) — Click the three dots on any card to view details, edit the deal, or mark it as Won/Lost.
• Mobile View — On mobile devices, the columns stack vertically. Instead of dragging, use the options menu and select Move to Stage.

When you mark a deal as Won or Lost, it is removed from the active Kanban board to keep your workspace clean. You can still access closed deals from the "All Deals" table, contact/company detail pages, or via search.

Managing Deals

A deal represents a specific revenue opportunity. Every deal must be linked to a Contact and can optionally be linked to a Company.

Creating a Deal

1. From the Kanban board or main deals page, click + New Deal (or the + icon on mobile).
2. Context-Aware Deal Creation Form:
   • The creation form renders in a standard form on desktop, and a touch-responsive bottom form on mobile.
   • The form pre-selects the pipeline based on your dashboard's active filter state.
   • Stage options resolve dynamically when the pipeline selection shifts, pre-selecting the first stage by default.
   • The form features contact selection and a team assignee menu.
   • On mobile viewports, the Pipeline and Stage selectors stack in a responsive grid to prevent text truncation.
3. Enter the title, value, and stage.
4. Select the linked Contact (required) and Company (optional).
5. Assign the deal to a team member (unassigned deals omit the circular avatar placeholder question mark for a cleaner layout).
6. Click Save New Deal (showing "Saving..." state on click).

The All Deals Table

The main /deals page features an All Deals table below your pipeline cards. This table shows every deal across all your pipelines. You can search by name or filter by pipeline, status (Open, Won, Lost), or period (Last 30 days).

You can sort the deals table client-side using clickable column headers:

• Deal: Sorts alphabetically by deal title (A→Z or Z→A) using text-aware sort icons (A Z / Z A).
• Value: Sorts by the deal's numeric value using number-aware sort icons (0 1 / 1 0).

The active sort header is highlighted in emerald. The sort state is preserved independently of any filter selections.

The Deal Detail View

Click any deal to open its detail view. The page displays a streamlined grid of information:

• Header & Audit Metadata — Displays the deal title, value, and status. Creator and modifier audit dates are rendered directly as a sub-header metadata line under the Deal Title.
• Unified Details Card — Pipeline Status and Related widgets are consolidated into a single, clean Details card.
• Connected Entities — Links to the associated Contact and Company. If you've added a Contract URL, a clickable "View Contract" link will appear here.
• Tasks Card — Allows you to create and manage tasks. Supports title search and status filtering (Open, Completed, or Any) with instant results.
• Payments — Track expected milestones and record received payments. The "Record Payment" form fields stack responsively on mobile.

[SCREENSHOT PLACEHOLDER: Deal detail view showing connected entities, unified details card, tasks, and payments section]

Payments & Revenue

The Payments section on the deal detail view lets you track payment schedules and record received payments.

Note: This is for tracking only. There is no invoicing system or Stripe integration for deal payments. It records what was agreed to and what has been received.

Scheduling vs. Recording

• + Schedule — Plan a future payment milestone (e.g., "Deposit", "Final Payment"). Enter the expected amount, due date, and any optional internal notes.
• + Record — Log a payment that has already been received. Or, click the Record button on a scheduled milestone to mark it as paid. You can enter payment details (such as method and reference number) and add optional notes.

Tracking Progress

The Payments header displays a progress bar showing how much you've collected versus how much is expected.

• Overdue Payments — Scheduled payments with a due date in the past display a red badge.
• Waived Payments — If a client doesn't need to pay a milestone, you can mark it as waived. It will be excluded from the progress bar totals.
• Processing Fees — When recording a payment, you can optionally log processing fees (like PayPal or Stripe fees). This is for your records only and does not reduce your gross revenue metrics.

Partial Payments: The system does not support partial payments on a single milestone. If a client pays $3,000 of a $5,000 milestone, edit the milestone to $3,000, record it as paid, and schedule a new milestone for the remaining $2,000.

Your received deal payments are automatically rolled into the Revenue (30d) metric on your main dashboard, and they also appear in the Transactions tab of the linked contact's detail page.

Permissions

• Pipelines & Stages — Only Admins and Owners can create, edit, or delete.
• Deals & Payments — All workspace members can view, create, and edit. Only Admins and Owners can delete them.

Related

• Workspace Settings — Workspace administration and role settings
• Automations — Trigger actions when deals change stages or are won/lost
• Technical Reference: Deals — Data models, Kanban architecture, and revenue calculation logic