📌 Stage 5 · Quotes to Orders · Sales Pipeline CRM · Quote Outcomes · 30–40 min
Accepted becomes an order; declined becomes a lesson
Learning goals
- Close the loop from quote outcome to opportunity stage
- Pull the company onto a quote through its opportunity
- Keep the paper trail: quote number to order number, forever
Concepts
Accepted, declined, and what each one triggers
A quote's outcome is never just a label - it obligates the next sheet. Accepted: write the Order # into column J (all five accepted quotes carry SO numbers) and open a row on Orders. Declined: the opportunity's stage becomes Lost and the quote register holds the reason. QT-3006 (Silver Pine Bakery, $9,800, sent Apr 8) was declined on price - look at Opportunities row 8 and OPP-104 shows exactly that: closed Lost on Apr 30, 2026, 'Lost on price to a national roaster'.
The two sheets corroborate each other, which is what an audit trail means in a small business: any number on the Dashboard can be walked backward to a quote, an opportunity, and a company.
=VLOOKUP($D10,Opportunities!$B$5:$D$1004,3,FALSE)Quotes store the Opp # (D10: OPP-104); this borrows the company name from the register's third column - Silver Pine Bakery. The chain quote to opportunity to company stays walkable in one lookup.
💡 Tips:
- When a customer asks 'what did you quote us in April?', the answer is one filter away - which is only true if every price promise lives in this register, not in email.
The hand-off point
Column J is where selling formally becomes fulfilling. The five accepted quotes map one-to-one onto orders SO-4001 through SO-4005 - equipment for Harborview, the Bluebird program, the Cedar Hollow lobby build-out, the Foxglove pour-over kit, and the Bright Path waiting-room stations. Lesson 16 builds the Orders sheet by chaining lookups through exactly this column.
Note what does NOT happen: no re-typing. The order will borrow its amount from the quote, the invoice will borrow from the order, and the receivable will borrow from the invoice. One typed dollar per deal, referenced everywhere else - that is how a workbook stays trustworthy all the way to cash.
💡 Tips:
- One exception to 'never re-type': order quantities can differ from quoted quantities (the customer trims scope). If so, quote the change with a revision row before accepting.
Practice
Fixed case (Jan-Jun 2026, aging date Jun 30, 2026). Pale-green cells are formulas; white cells are typed entries. This lesson opens on Quotes.
- Type the company lookup — E10 is blank. Click it and type =VLOOKUP($D10,Opportunities!$B$5:$D$1004,3,FALSE) then Enter. It returns Silver Pine Bakery - the account behind the declined QT-3006.
- Walk the declined trail — Same row: I10 reads Declined, J10 is empty (no order), and the Notes on Opportunities row OPP-104 say 'Lost on price to a national roaster'. Quote, outcome, and cause in one glance.
- Walk the accepted trail — Rows 5-9: each Accepted quote names its order - QT-3001 to SO-4001 (Harborview), QT-3002 to SO-4002 (Bluebird), QT-3003 to SO-4003 (Cedar Hollow), QT-3004 to SO-4004 (Foxglove), QT-3005 to SO-4005 (Bright Path).
- Spot the live ones — Rows 11-12 (QT-3007, QT-3008) are still Sent with no order number - these are July's decisions, worth a follow-up before they expire.
Online exercise
The spreadsheet below is editable — follow the practice steps right on this page. Steps that need ribbon menus should be done in your own Excel with the downloadable practice file.
Checklist
Work through each item; when every box passes, this lesson is done:
- ☐ E10 returned Silver Pine Bakery and traced the declined QT-3006 to OPP-104 (Lost)
- ☐ Confirmed all five Accepted quotes name their order (SO-4001 through SO-4005)
- ☐ Can explain why column J is the hand-off point and why amounts are never re-typed downstream