Every sales team knows the customer who says "we like it, but not now": a budget freeze, a reorganisation, a new manager who wants to look again after the summer. The deal is not lost, but it is not moving either. The reflex in many CRMs is to create a stage called "On hold" and drag those deals into it. Pomio CRM recommends against that, because it solves the visibility problem by destroying the information you need when the deal comes back.
Why "on hold" is not a stage
Stages follow the buying process: qualified, proposal, negotiation, and so on. Each stage should have exit criteria that say what must be true before a deal moves on. "On hold" has no exit criteria and no place in that order; a deal can pause right after the first call or a week before signature. Put both in the same stage and the pipeline no longer tells you how close they were, which is exactly what you need to know when deciding where to spend time once the customer returns.
What goes wrong with an on-hold stage
The stage becomes a parking lot. Deals that nobody wants to close as lost end up there and stay for months, because moving them out requires a decision.
Stage history is distorted. Days-in-stage, conversion between stages and win rates per stage all include a long detour that says nothing about how your sales process performs.
Restarting is guesswork. When the customer calls back, someone has to reconstruct whether the deal was in proposal or negotiation and which version of the offer was on the table.
A better way to handle paused deals
Keep the real stage. The deal stays where it was when the customer paused. If the pause really changed things, for example a new decision-maker who wants to start over, move it back a stage deliberately; the article on moving a deal back a stage explains when that is right.
Mark the pause with a label. One agreed label, such as "On hold", from your fixed list of labels, so paused deals can be filtered in every stage at once.
Update the dates. Move the expected close date to the realistic new timing, not to the end of the current month, and give the owner one dated check-in task, usually a few days before the moment the customer mentioned.
Write down why. A one-line note with the reason for the pause and what has to happen before it can restart: budget approved, new manager in place, project after the holidays.
Keep paused deals out of the committed forecast
A paused deal can still be valuable, but it should not count towards the number the team commits to this month or quarter. Keep it visible in the pipeline and leave it out of the committed total until the customer confirms a restart. If you use forecast categories, put paused deals in the lowest one; see forecast categories for open deals.
Agree a maximum hold period
Without a limit, "on hold" becomes a polite word for lost. Agree how long a deal may stay paused, for example 60 or 90 days, and review on-hold deals in the weekly pipeline meeting. At the end of the period, the owner either restarts the deal with a confirmed next step or closes it as lost with a reason such as "postponed" or "no decision". If the customer comes back later, you can reopen it or create a new deal; the article on reopening or recreating a lost deal covers that choice. For deals that went quiet without any agreement, see closing quiet deals after inactivity.
How Pomio CRM helps
In Pomio CRM, deals have an owner, amount, stage, source, notes and links to companies and contacts. Filterable labels let you see all paused deals across stages in the board or list view, tasks with due dates and assignment put the check-in in the owner's agenda, and the activity timeline shows each stage change, so the history stays readable when a deal restarts. Closed deals are archived rather than deleted, and roles with the scope own, team or organisation decide who sees which paused deals. See the features page for an overview.
A practical checklist
Do not create an on-hold stage; keep each paused deal in the stage it really reached; add one agreed on-hold label; move the expected close date to the realistic new timing; create one dated check-in task for the owner; note the reason for the pause and the restart condition; leave paused deals out of the committed forecast; review them weekly and close them as lost with a reason when the maximum hold period has passed.