Sales Funnel and Sales Graphs Reports

Douglas Wolf ACT! Certified Consultant

Version(s) of ACT! and level of user:  Version 5; Users who use the Sales/Opportunities in ACT! (Possibly “New User”; most likely “Power User”

“Pictures tell a thousand words.” We’ve all heard this – or something like this – before. It’s frequently much easier to understand a concept or describe something through the use of pictures and graphics. Have you applied this to the way you look at your sales? If not, read on because ACT! has made it easy for you to create reports that tell you, in living color, how your sales are going. Using ACT!’s Sales Funnel and Sales Graph, you can quickly and easily see how you’re doing.

The Sales Funnel
The Sales Funnel shows a “snapshot” of the number of sales you currently have at each of the sales stages. Because you know your sales ratio (how many sales you need at each sales stage to reach your sales goals), the sales funnel helps you ensure that you have enough sales opportunities at each stage (represented by each section in the funnel) to reach your goals.
Note that the size of the colored sections in the sales funnel don’t change to match the number of sales that exist at each stage. The funnel will always have the shape of the funnel shown in Figure 2.
When you need to quickly see how many sales you have in each of your sales stages today, create the Sales Funnel by doing the following:
1. Open the ACT! database that has the sales data you want to see.
2. If you want to create the Sales Funnel on a particular set of contact records, create a lookup containing these contact records.
3. Open the Sales menu and select Sales Funnel to display the Sales Funnel Options dialog box.

Sales Funnel Options dialog box.
4. In the Sales Funnel Options dialog box, identify the following:
* Which of the contacts in your database you want data the displayed for in the Sales Funnel.
* If you want to display the data for the sales managed by all the users in the database or those managed by only selected users.
* The colors associated with each sales stage. You can change the color for a sales stage by clicking on the browse button to the right of the color sample.
5. Click on the Graph button to create the Sales Funnel.

Sales Funnel showing a “snapshot” of sales
6. You may change the settings you defined for the sales funnel by clicking on the Options button in the Sales Funnel window.
7. Once the sales funnel looks the way you want it to, you may:
* Save the sales funnel for review later
* Copy the funnel to your Windows clipboard as a bitmap so that you can share it or paste it into another program
* Print the funnel
The Sales Graph
The Sales Graph displays your sales over a period of time to provide you with more information, over a longer period of time, than the Sales Funnel. You can control quite a few aspects of the way your sales data are graphed. Follow these steps:
1. Open the ACT! database that has the sales data you want to see.
2. If you want to create the Sales Graph on a particular set of contact records, create a lookup containing these contact records.
3. Open the Sales menu and select Sales Graph to display the Graph Options dialog with the General Tab.

General tab in the Graph Options dialog box
4. In the General tab of the Graph Options dialog box, make changes to the following settings as needed:
* In the “Create Graph for” area, select which of the contacts in your database for whom you want data displayed in the Sales Funnel.
* In the “Display data for sales managed by” area, indicate if you want to display the data for the sales managed by all the users in the database or those managed by only selected users.
* In the “Graph” area, specify the data you want to include in the graph: all sales opportunities, forecasted sales adjusted for probability, or only the closed and won sales
* In the “Dates to graph” area, decide if you want the dates shown by day, week, month, quarter, or year, then choose the dates to include in the graph.
* In the “Value to graph” area, choose between amount (which will show the monetary value of the sales) or units (which will show the quantity of products represented by the sales)
* In the “Graph title” lines, indicate the title(s) you want to include above the graph. The first title line defaults to the value defined for the type of graph you selected, but you may change this.
5. Click on the Graph tab in the Graph Options.

Graph tab in the Graph Options dialog box
6. In the Graph tab of the Graph Options dialog box, make changes to the following settings as needed:
* In the “Type” area, indicate if you want the graph to be a bar graph or a line graph.
* In the “Style” area, indicate if you want the graph to be 3-dimensional or 2-dimensional.
* In the “Graph size” area, choose to either have all data fit in the resulting dialog box or have a full-sized graph displayed in the dialog box.
* In the “Scale” area, select Auto to let ACT! spread the resulting data evenly along the Y-axis. Select Define to allow you to control the lowest and highest values shown along the Y-axis, which allows you to look at smaller increments in the data.
* If you want to show vertical, horizontal, or both grid lines, click the check box next to the appropriate setting.
* In the “Colors” area, click on the drop-down arrows to change the color of the graph, text, and background.
7. Click on the Graph button to create the Sales Graph.

Sales Graph showing a 3-dimensional line graph displaying monthly  forecasted monetary sales data for the second half of 2001.
8. You may change the settings you defined for the sales graph by clicking on the Options button in the Sales Graph window.
9. Once the sales funnel looks the way you want it to, you may:
* Save the sales graph for review later
* Copy the sales graph to your Windows clipboard as a bitmap so that you can share it or paste it into another program
* Print the sales graph

As you can see, the Sales Funnel and Sales Graph sales reports provide
quick and easy access to your sales data. With the Sales Funnel, you can
make sure that you have enough potential sales in your pipeline to close the
sales you need to reach your goals. With the Sales Graph, you can see how
you’ve been doing over a given period of time. By combining the knowledge
you get from your historical data with the knowledge you have on your
current sales possibilities, you can help ensure the growth of your sales -
and your business!”