ANTE User ManualMove a Deal Through the Pipeline
A sales opportunity in ANTE starts as a company and a contact, becomes a deal on your pipeline board, moves stage by stage as the conversation progresses, and ends as a resolved deal you can learn from. This walkthrough follows one opportunity along that whole path.Before you start
Everything here lives under CRM in the sidebar. Two pieces of setup make the deal form much faster to fill in, though you can also create both on the spot while typing:
- Deal types and sources — the categories a deal is filed under and how the lead reached you. See Deal Type and Deal Source.
- Pipeline stages — the columns your board is built from, configurable in Pipeline Settings.
Optional but useful: Pricing Tiers auto-fill contract amounts and flag over-discounting, and Relationship Owners are the teammates a deal can be assigned to.
Open CRM → Companies and click Add Company. Record the Company Name, Industry, contact details (phone, email, website), and Address, then click Save.
The company is the organization your deals and contacts hang off. Opening one later gives you tabs for its Deals, Contacts, Notes, and Files, so the whole relationship stays in one place.
- 1Add Company — creates the organization record
- 2Company Name — click a row to open the company
- 3Deals — how many opportunities are linked to that company
Go to CRM → Contacts and click Add Contact. Full Name, Email, and Company are required; Phone and Job Title are optional. Click Create Contact to save.
If you are working from a business card, click Scan Business Card instead, upload the photo, review the Extracted Information (fields read with low confidence are flagged), then click Use Results to open the form pre-filled. You still need to select the Company yourself — the scanner does not set it.
Open CRM → Deals and click New Deal (or the + in a board column to start the deal already in that stage). Fill in:
- Deal Name (required) and Close Date (required) — the Create Deal button stays disabled until both are filled.
- Deal Type and Deal Source — pick one, or type a new name to create it on the spot.
- Pricing Tier — shown when the chosen deal type has tiers; selecting one auto-fills the contract amounts.
- Stage, Relationship Owner, Target Close Date, and Win Probability (%) (defaults to 50).
- The money: Approved Budget Contract, Monthly Recurring Revenue, Implementation Fee, and Total Contract.
Click Create Deal.
Change an auto-filled amount and a variance indicator shows the difference. If a discount on Total Contract goes beyond the tier's maximum allowed discount, you get a warning.
Deals open in Board view by default — one column per pipeline stage, with the default stages running Prospect, Initial Meeting, Technical Meeting, Proposal, In Negotiation, Won, and Lost.
- Drag a card into another column to move the deal to that stage.
- Click a column header to rename the stage inline, or the gear icon to open Pipeline Settings.
- Switch to Grid for cards you can view, edit, or delete, or Spreadsheet for a scannable table.
- Narrow any view with the Stage, Type, Owner, and Closing Date filters.
You can also change the stage from the deal form itself: open the deal, click Edit, change Stage, and click Save Changes.
- 1View toggle — Grid, Board, and Spreadsheet
- 2Stage — the pipeline column each deal currently sits in
- 3Filters — Stage, Type, Owner, and Closing Date
Open a deal to get its tabbed detail view, and keep the record current as things happen:
- Overview — stage, win probability, deal type and source, the financials with their variance, the people involved (relationship owner and point of contact), and the dates.
- Notes — what was said and agreed.
- Attachments — files exchanged with the client.
- Activity — the timeline of what has happened on the deal.
Update the contract amounts whenever they change — pipeline totals and the resolved-deal analytics are only as accurate as these figures.
On the deal's Proposals tab, click New Quotation to open a quotation for this deal (existing proposals in the list reopen the same form). Add the line items, then click Export PDF at the top of the dialog.
ANTE renders the quotation exactly as it currently stands — company header, line items, subtotal, VAT where taxed, total, payment terms, notes, and signature lines — and downloads it. You do not have to finish or save the proposal first, but it needs at least one item before it will export.
In Board view, drag the deal onto the Won, Lost, or Unqualified zone. Enter a reason when prompted and confirm. The deal leaves the active pipeline and lands under Resolved Deals.
For a win that turns into delivery work, use Convert to Project in the deal's toolbar — available once the deal is in Proposal, In Negotiation, or Won. It creates a Project or an Engagement, carrying over the name, budget, and dates.
The reason you type here is what fills the Reason column and the Loss Reasons chart on Resolved Deals. Skip it and you lose the one piece of information that explains your win rate.
Open CRM → Resolved Deals. The insight cards count Total Closed, Won, the Win/Loss Ratio, and Avg. Deal Size, with Win Rate, Revenue Won, Avg. Sales Cycle, and Deal Velocity beneath them.
The Loss Reasons chart shows why deals end the way they do, and Win Rate Trend tracks whether you are improving month over month. Filter the table with the All / Won / Lost / Unqualified tabs, or search it by deal name.
Note that Win Rate counts only decided deals — those marked Won or Lost. Deals marked Unqualified add to Total Closed but are left out of the win-rate maths.
- 1Win Rate — won out of decided deals only
- 2Loss Reasons — the reasons recorded when deals were resolved
- 3Resolution tabs — All, Won, Lost, Unqualified
Where to go next
- Deal Stages — the default pipeline and how resolutions differ from stages.
- Deal Convert — turning a won deal into a project or engagement.
- CRM Dashboard — pipeline value and sales performance at a glance.
- Import Deals — bring an existing pipeline in rather than typing it deal by deal.
- CRM FAQ — quick answers on deals, contacts, and pipeline setup.