We close a reasonable number of deals that start in the DMs but the record of it lives in someone's head and a spreadsheet. What should actually be recorded, and where, so the pipeline is real?

Record four things at the moment they happen: the source, the stage, the value and the outcome. Anything reconstructed later is a guess with a date on it. Concretely: - Source. A tag naming the post, campaign or channel that produced the conversation. Applied by the automation, not by a person, because the automation is the only thing that knows. - Stage. A deal on the contact that moves as the conversation moves. Asked, quoted, waiting, won or lost. The stage change is what turns a pile of chats into a pipeline you can look at on a Monday. - Value. The amount, entered when you quote rather than when you close. Quoted value that never closes is the most useful number you are currently not collecting. - Outcome. Won or lost, with a reason on lost. Three reason options are enough and they will tell you more than any dashboard. What to automate rather than ask a person to do: - Creating the deal when a qualifying step is reached, so no conversation is missed. - Moving the stage when a payment link is sent or a booking is made. - Recording the conversion when money lands. Leave the judgement calls to the person: the value, and the reason a deal was lost. Those cannot be inferred and automating a guess makes the data worse than not having it. The [Analytics basics](/help/article/analytics-basics) article covers reading source through to outcome once the tags and stages are in place.

What should you record when a DM turns into a sale?

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ChatinFlow TeamКоманда

2026-09-24

Record four things at the moment they happen: the source, the stage, the value and the outcome. Anything reconstructed later is a guess with a date on it.

Concretely:

Source. A tag naming the post, campaign or channel that produced the conversation. Applied by the automation, not by a person, because the automation is the only thing that knows.
Stage. A deal on the contact that moves as the conversation moves. Asked, quoted, waiting, won or lost. The stage change is what turns a pile of chats into a pipeline you can look at on a Monday.
Value. The amount, entered when you quote rather than when you close. Quoted value that never closes is the most useful number you are currently not collecting.
Outcome. Won or lost, with a reason on lost. Three reason options are enough and they will tell you more than any dashboard.

What to automate rather than ask a person to do:

Creating the deal when a qualifying step is reached, so no conversation is missed.
Moving the stage when a payment link is sent or a booking is made.
Recording the conversion when money lands.

Leave the judgement calls to the person: the value, and the reason a deal was lost. Those cannot be inferred and automating a guess makes the data worse than not having it.

The Analytics basics article covers reading source through to outcome once the tags and stages are in place.

Priya V.

2026-09-24

Quoted value that never closes being the most useful missing number is going straight into our weekly review.