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What's the difference between Prospect, Lead and Opportunity?

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Posted on by Community Member Microsoft Employee

I'm really don't understand completely these concepts: Prospect, Lead and Opportunity?

Thanks for your help.

Fabio

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M.TEJA 20 on at

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RE: What's the difference between Prospect, Lead and Opportunity?

Thank you
Christian Boodts on at

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RE: What's the difference between Prospect, Lead and Opportunity?

Thanks, Ivan ... clear answer and solution :)
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ikoletic 2,202 on at

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RE: What's the difference between Prospect, Lead and Opportunity?

Hi Christian

Prospects are considered contacts in Business Central. So yes, you would use Contact as Prospect.

In Sales Quotes you can use Contact. See picture below.

Simply click on Show more when creating a new sales quote and pick Contact (prospect if you will).

Key thing needed for quote to work correctly is to have Customer Template Code (next to Contact No. field in General tab of Sales Quote header).

While preparing sales quote, Business Central needs to know how to calculate taxes for sales quote, set default payment terms and payment method. These are settings that are set on Customer, so until Contact gets converted to customer (e.g. when Sales Quote is converted to an Order), Business Central takes those defaults and setup from Customer Template. Selected Customer Template is also used when Contact gets converted to Customer.

Another way to create Sales Quote for a Contact is to simply go to Contacts (list) and click New Sales Quote, like on picture below.
Christian Boodts on at

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RE: What's the difference between Prospect, Lead and Opportunity?

If I understood the replies well, is the following correct ?:

- there is NO seperate entity for Prospect ?

- you would you use a Contact as a Prospect ?

- for an sales/project Quotation you need a Customer, so in that case you cannot use a Contact ?
ikoletic 2,202 on at

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RE: What's the difference between Prospect, Lead and Opportunity?

Case 1 is more accurate description. As soon as sales quote gets converted to order you'll be informed that prospect (contact) has to be converted to customer.
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: What's the difference between Prospect, Lead and Opportunity?

All good and I know the difference between Lead & Opportunity and simply put it has always been like Lead >> Opportunity >> Customer (or Account) (irrespective of I've done any business or not yet with this new customer)

Now what case among below explains your explanation better:

Case 1: it is like Lead >> Opportunity >> Prospect ( Account with no business transactions recorded) >> Customer (when at least 1 business transaction i.e. sale orders etc. recorded) -- is it right? if yes, then will Prospect be automatically converted into Customer when the first transaction is recorded?

Case 2: it is like Lead >> Opportunity >> Customer. But additionally you can qualify any Lead or opportunity into Prospect as well on optional basis OR you can simply create a 'Customer'

Talha
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: What's the difference between Prospect, Lead and Opportunity?

Hi Ivan,

Perfect! Thank you for your help.

Fabio
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ikoletic 2,202 on at

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RE: What's the difference between Prospect, Lead and Opportunity?

Hi Fabio

Prospect is a potential customer or account (who part of lead or opportunity) who hasn't yet done any business with you.

Lead is a not yet qualified opportunity. For example you know prospect expressed the interest in doing business with you but you don't know which products he's interested in, what is the time frame he's planning the purchase or what his budget for purchase is. Leads are usually generated by campaigns, they are the ones that respond to your campaign. Lead is a marketing category. If you look at it from funnel perspective they are usually on the top wide end of the funnel. Marketing's job among other things is to generate leads.

Once lead is handed over from marketing to sales, sales people qualify them, communicate with them to figure out what specifically they are interested in, when they plan the purchase and what their budget is. This process is called lead qualification and as a result of this process lead, if he meets qualification criteria which may be different from company to company, get's converted to opportunity. Opportunity is then taken by sales people and usually goes through a series of steps that are a part of sales process. Sales job is to convert opportunities (qualified leads) to cash/revenue.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Ivan