Pomio CRM counts won deals towards targets, the scoreboard and commission, so the moment a deal is marked as won matters more than it seems. In many small sales teams that moment differs per person: one salesperson clicks won after a good phone call, another waits for the signature, a third only after the first invoice has been paid. The result is a pipeline in which the same word means three different things.
Why the moment of winning matters
Marking a deal as won is not just a status change. It moves revenue into a period, counts towards a person or team target, can trigger commission and usually starts the handoff to delivery. If the moment is not agreed, the month figures depend on who happened to update the deal and when. Two salespeople with the same results can end up with different scores, and a manager who reads the scoreboard at the end of the quarter cannot tell whether the number reflects signed business or optimism. One shared definition solves that, in the same way shared stage definitions do for the rest of the pipeline.
Three common moments: yes, signature, payment
Most SMEs choose, often implicitly, between three moments. The verbal yes comes earliest and feels good, but customers still change their minds, procurement adds conditions or the budget turns out to be for next year. Payment comes latest and is certain, but it can lag weeks or months behind the actual decision and depends on invoicing and payment terms that sales does not control. The binding commitment sits in between: the moment the customer has signed, accepted the quote in writing or sent a purchase order. That is the moment the decision is made and can be shown.
Choose the binding commitment
For most teams of five to fifty people the binding commitment is the best rule. It is verifiable, because there is a document or an email to point to. It sits close to the real decision, so the period in which the deal counts matches the period in which the work was done. And it keeps sales and finance separate: whether and when the invoice is paid is followed up in the accounting system, not by keeping a deal open in the CRM. Make the rule the exit criterion of the last stage before won, for example “signed contract, accepted quote or purchase order received”.
Use the commitment date as the close date
When a deal is marked as won, the close date should be the date of the commitment, not the date someone got round to updating the CRM. Otherwise a contract signed on the last day of the month moves into the next month because the salesperson updated the deal on Monday. Check the close date and the amount at the same time: the value should be the agreed amount, entered the same way as the rest of the pipeline, for example excluding VAT. If the final amount differs from the last estimate, a short note explains why, as described in whether changing a deal amount should require a note.
Conditional deals stay open
Some customers sign under a condition: subject to financing, board approval, a successful pilot or a permit. Those deals are not won yet, because the decision can still go either way. Keep them open in the last stage, set the expected close date to the moment the condition should be met and make the condition the next step. In the forecast they belong in a high forecast category, but not in won revenue. When the condition is met, mark the deal as won with that date.
When a won deal falls apart
Occasionally a customer withdraws after signing. Do not delete the deal and do not quietly change it back, because that rewrites figures that people have already seen and perhaps been paid on. Agree a fixed approach instead: the deal is marked as lost with a clear reason, a note explains what happened and any commission is corrected in the next statement. The audit trail then still shows who changed what and when, as explained in why a CRM should keep an audit trail.
When payment is the right moment after all
There are exceptions. If customers buy online and pay up front, payment and commitment coincide, so the payment date is the natural close date. The same applies to small one-off orders without a contract. And some businesses, for example those with a high share of customers who sign but never pay, choose to pay commission only on paid invoices while still marking the deal as won at signature. That is a sensible split: sales results follow the commitment, commission follows the cash.
How Pomio CRM helps
Pomio CRM keeps stage, owner, value, source, close date and notes in one deal record, linked to the company and contacts. Stage changes appear in the activity timeline and the audit log records who did what and when. The scoreboard shows revenue, won deals, funnel, sources and a leaderboard by period, and targets can be set per user or per team for a month, quarter or year. Commission rules, deal splits and statements with corrections live in the same environment, so a won deal counts once, in the right period. An overview of the capabilities is on the features page.
A practical checklist
Agree one moment for won: the binding commitment; name the documents that count, such as a signed contract, an accepted quote or a purchase order; make that the exit criterion of the last stage; use the commitment date as the close date; check the amount when marking won; keep conditional deals open until the condition is met; follow payment up in the accounting system, not in the pipeline; handle a withdrawn deal as lost with a reason and a correction; write the rule down and apply it to everyone, including the managing director.
Further reading
Is an email saying “we go ahead” enough?
If it is a clear written acceptance of a specific quote, yes. If it is a general intention without amount or scope, keep the deal open and ask for the quote to be accepted or signed.
What if the purchase order arrives weeks after the signature?
Use the first binding document. If the contract is signed, the deal is won on that date; the purchase order is an administrative step for invoicing.
Should the handoff to delivery start at won?
Yes. Marking a deal as won is the natural trigger for the handoff task, so delivery starts from the same agreed scope and amount.
Does this affect commission?
It decides in which period a deal counts. Whether commission is paid at signature or on payment is a separate rule, described in whether sales commission should be calculated in the CRM.