What is a Deal?

Updated 31 May 2026·9 min read

A Deal is a specific revenue opportunity — a defined possibility of money coming into your business, with a value, an expected close date, and a stage. This page explains what makes something a deal, how deals relate to contacts and companies, and walks through a real B2B SaaS deal from first conversation to signed contract.

Back to Aditya

You met Aditya Joshi and his Bengaluru-based company StoreWorks on the What is a Lead? page. They sell inventory software to mid-sized retail chains. Karan, his SDR for North India, was working a lead — Nikhil at Bandhej Lifestyle, a 12-outlet apparel chain headquartered in Jaipur.

Five weeks pass. Vijay, the closer who took over from Karan, ran the demo. The ops manager Priya came to the second meeting. There was a 14-day trial. The contract has been sent. It’s sitting with Nikhil for review.

At this point, Nikhil and Bandhej Lifestyle are no longer a lead. They’re a Contact (Nikhil), a Company (Bandhej Lifestyle), and — most importantly — a Deal: ₹2.5 Lakh in annual contract value, projected to close on 28th April, currently in stage “Contract Sent.”

Deals are how a CRM tracks the money side of every relationship.

The 30-second answer

A Deal is one specific opportunity for money to come into your business. It has a value (how much), an expected close date (when), a stage (where it is right now), and an owner (who’s working it). Unlike a Lead (no commercial commitment yet) or a Contact (the person), a Deal is the money-shaped thing in between — the specific possibility of revenue that you can track, move through stages, win, or lose.

What makes something a Deal?

Three things have to be true:

There’s a specific buyer in mind — a real Contact at a real Company. Not “people who might want this product someday.”
There’s a specific amount of money — even if it’s a rough estimate. ₹2.5 Lakh annual. ₹14 Lakh over the year. ₹85,000 admission. Some number.
There’s a defined sale you’re working towards — not “maybe they’ll keep buying from us forever,” but “this specific sale, with this specific scope, expected to close around this date.”

And three things a Deal is not:

A Deal is NOT…	Because…
A vague hope (“might buy something next year”)	No specific scope or amount. Keep them as a Contact with a follow-up reminder; create the Deal when there’s real intent.
A lead you haven’t qualified yet	Leads live in the Leads list. Convert them only when you’re sure there’s real intent — then a Deal gets created automatically.
An existing customer’s recurring monthly invoice	That’s revenue from an already-closed deal, not a new deal. Recurring billing belongs to your invoicing tool, not the Deals list.

Bandhej Lifestyle — one Deal’s journey

Here is exactly how Bandhej’s Deal moved through StoreWorks’ pipeline:

Deal: Bandhej Lifestyle — Annual Contract — ₹2.5 Lakh

Week 1 · Stage: Discovery — Karan’s qualifying call. Nikhil confirms: 12 outlets, ₹2-3L budget, decision-maker, current pain is sale-event stock-takes. Deal created automatically when lead converted. Value: estimated ₹2.5L. Probability: 25%.
Week 2 · Stage: Demo Booked — Wednesday afternoon, Vijay runs a 45-minute product demo. Nikhil brings his ops manager Priya. They both ask about Tally export. Probability bumped to 40%.
Week 3 · Stage: Trial — Bandhej starts a 14-day trial. Priya sets up StoreWorks at the Jaipur head office and one Surat outlet. Three check-ins from Vijay during the trial. Probability bumped to 60%.
Week 4 · Stage: Proposal Sent — Vijay sends a written proposal with three options: Bronze (basic, ₹1.8L), Silver (full, ₹2.5L), Gold (full + integrations, ₹3.4L). Nikhil reviews. Probability 70%.
Week 5 · Stage: Negotiation — Nikhil pushes back: “Can you do Silver at ₹2.2L?” Vijay holds firm at ₹2.5L but throws in three months of priority support. Accepted in principle. Probability 85%.
Week 6 · Stage: Contract Sent — formal contract emailed Tuesday. Awaiting Nikhil’s sign. Vijay sets a polite-nudge reminder for the following Monday. Probability 90%.
Week 7 · Stage: Closed-Won — Nikhil signs Friday. ₹2.5 Lakh contract value, 14-day grace period, payment within 30 days. The Deal moves to Closed-Won. Bandhej Lifestyle becomes a paying customer.

Six weeks. Eight stages. One Deal record in TatvaCRM that the whole team could see throughout — Karan (who handed it off), Vijay (who closed it), Neha (sales head, who reviewed it weekly), Aditya (founder, who didn’t need to be in the weekly call because the Deal record told him everything). That visibility is the point.

What lives on a Deal record?

Value — annual contract value (ACV), or one-time, depending on your business. Bandhej’s ACV is ₹2.5L.
Stage — Discovery / Demo / Trial / Proposal / Negotiation / Contract Sent / Closed-Won / Closed-Lost. Custom per pipeline.
Probability — how likely is this Deal to close, as a percentage. Often auto-set based on stage, but the owner can override.
Close date — when you expect this to land. Updates as things progress.
Linked Contact and Company — Nikhil and Bandhej Lifestyle.
Owner — Vijay, after handoff from Karan.
Products / line items — what specifically is being sold. StoreWorks Silver plan + 3-month priority support.
History — every call, email, demo, document attached to the Deal.
Pipeline — which pipeline this Deal belongs to. StoreWorks has two: “New Business” (this Deal) and “Expansion” (existing customers buying more).

A Company can have many Deals over time

Bandhej’s first contract closes for ₹2.5L. Six months later, Vijay opens a new Deal: “Bandhej — add 3 new outlets to existing licence — ₹70,000.” A year later, an expansion Deal: “Bandhej — upgrade to Gold plan — ₹3.4L.”

Same Company, same primary Contact (Nikhil), three separate Deals. Each one with its own value, close date, and stage. That’s how a CRM tracks revenue from a single relationship over time — without confusing recurring expansion with the original sale.

Why this matters

Three years from now, Aditya can answer questions like: “What’s our average expansion revenue per customer in year two?” — by looking at the Deals attached to all Companies that became customers in 2024. He can answer “Which industry has the longest sales cycle?” by looking at the average days-in-stage of Deals tagged with each industry. None of this is possible if all revenue is jumbled into one number per customer. The Deal level is where analysis becomes possible.

The pipeline view — Aditya’s Monday morning

At 9:30 on a Monday, Aditya opens TatvaCRM. Instead of the Leads page (Karan’s view) or the Companies page (Vikram’s view from the previous chapter), Aditya opens the Pipeline. He sees a kanban board — eight columns, one per stage, with Deal cards stacked in each column.

Discovery — 14 Deals — ₹38 Lakh combined
Demo — 9 Deals — ₹27 Lakh
Trial — 7 Deals — ₹19 Lakh
Proposal — 5 Deals — ₹14 Lakh
Negotiation — 4 Deals — ₹12 Lakh
Contract Sent — 2 Deals — ₹6 Lakh (Bandhej is one of these)
Closed-Won this month — 3 Deals — ₹8.5 Lakh
Closed-Lost this month — 5 Deals — ₹13 Lakh

Aditya can see at a glance: pipeline is healthy in early stages, thin in late-stage. The team needs to push more Trials towards Proposal this month — or next month’s revenue will be light. He pings Neha. They block a 30-minute call for Wednesday to dig into which Trial Deals are stuck and why.

Three years ago, before TatvaCRM, this same conversation took half a day to prepare. Reps would scramble together what they remembered. Numbers wouldn’t add up. Stale forecasts. Surprised quarter-ends. The week Aditya saw his sales forecast miss by 60% was the week he stopped running the company on spreadsheets.

Common confusions, cleared up

“We have monthly SaaS subscriptions — is each month a Deal?”

No. The initial contract — the moment the customer first commits to a subscription — is one Deal. Recurring monthly billing is just collection on that closed deal, and it belongs in your invoicing tool. The next Deal happens when there’s an expansion, renewal, or upgrade — a new commitment from the customer, not just automated billing of the existing one.

“When should I actually create the Deal — at the first call, or after the demo?”

Standard practice: create the Deal at the moment you convert a Lead. So as soon as the Lead is qualified — Nikhil confirmed budget, decision-maker, and timeline — Karan converts. A Deal is created automatically at the first stage of the pipeline. Creating Deals earlier (during cold outreach) clutters your forecast with unqualified noise. Creating them later (only after the demo) loses early-stage visibility.

“We sell to two very different markets. Do all Deals go in one pipeline?”

No — use separate pipelines. StoreWorks has “New Business” (acquisition deals) and “Expansion” (existing customers buying more). The stages, conversion rates, and even the owners can be different. TatvaCRM lets you create multiple pipelines and route Deals to the right one. Don’t try to force one pipeline to handle completely different sales motions.

“We lost a Deal six months ago. Now they’re back asking. Reopen or create new?”

Create a new Deal. Don’t reopen the closed-lost one. The reason: your reporting depends on accurate close dates and stage history. Reopening makes the data confusing — was it really closed in March or in September? A fresh Deal with a link in the notes (“see prior lost Deal #2241 from March 2026”) keeps history intact and lets you measure the comeback as its own win.

“The customer asked for ₹2L, I quoted ₹2.5L, and we’re still negotiating. What amount goes on the Deal?”

Use the most probable amount you’ll actually close at. If you’re fairly confident you’ll meet in the middle, put ₹2.25L. If you think they’ll come up to ₹2.5L, put ₹2.5L. Update as negotiations progress. The whole point of the Deal value is forecasting — give your future self the most honest number you can. When the contract signs, the final value goes in.

“One Deal includes two products at different prices. How do I track that?”

Use line items. TatvaCRM lets you add multiple products under a single Deal, each with its own quantity and price. The Deal total rolls up automatically. This is much cleaner than creating one Deal per product — because the customer signed one contract, with one close date, and you want the total business value in one place.