Published at: 2026-09-17

Core sales management terms

This page explains common abbreviations, core objects, and key rules in Sales Management, organized by sales process. Your enterprise may customize names, statuses, and required fields. Follow your current system configuration.

Common process abbreviations

Abbreviation	English	Meaning in this documentation
SFA	Sales Force Automation	Sales automation that uses unified data, processes, and rules to manage a sales team’s daily work.
MTL	Market-to-Lead	The process from marketing to lead. Campaigns, account discovery, and tender intelligence generate and retain Sales Leads.
LTO	Lead-to-Order	The process from lead to order. It covers Lead validation, Account creation, Opportunity progression, quoting, and order confirmation.
L2C	Lead-to-Cash	The complete sales cycle from lead through Collection. Some materials call this process LTC. This guide focuses on contracts, delivery, and receivable creation. It does not cover cash collection.
CPQ	Configure, Price, Quote	A process that combines products, attributes, BOMs, Price Books, and saleable scopes into an executable Quote.
BOM	Bill of Materials	A structure that describes a bundled Product and its components in a sales scenario.
ERP	Enterprise Resource Planning	A system that handles core inventory operations when CRM integrates with ERP. The ERP synchronizes results to CRM.

[!NOTE] These abbreviations help explain the business scope. They are not necessarily menu or object names. LTO always means Lead-to-Order in this documentation.

Marketing and Lead Management

Term	Definition
Campaign	A specific customer acquisition activity. It records goals, status, Owner, members, and investment to capture leads and analyze results.
Campaign Member	A person or enterprise participating in a Campaign. Campaign Members provide source data for Lead follow-up and performance analysis.
Marketing Attribution	Analysis of how marketing sources or touchpoints contribute to Lead conversion. It helps evaluate Channels and Campaigns.
Sales Lead	Unvalidated prospect information, such as a name, Phone number, or Company.
Lead pool	A container that groups leads by Area, industry, Channel, or another dimension. It supports Claim, Assign, Transfer, Return, and Withdraw operations.
Behavior Points	A score accumulated from prospect behavior. It helps identify intent and prioritize follow-up.
Lead duplicate detection	Rules and fields that identify potentially Duplicate leads.
Lead conversion	Converts a validated Lead into an Account, Contact, or Opportunity for the next sales stage.
Lead retention limit	The maximum Lead Quantity a User can hold within a Specified Range.

Common Lead statuses include Not Assigned, Pending, In Follow-Up, Invalid, Converted, and Voided. For status meanings and transitions, see Sales Lead overview.

Accounts and Contacts

Term	Definition
Account	An organization or individual developed over time. It can contain Contacts, Opportunities, contracts, orders, and other data.
Contact	A specific person at an Account. Contacts can appear in the Org Structure, influence map, and Opportunity decision chain.
Account Address	Address data used for visits, deliveries, and other Account activities.
Account Financial Information	Financial data used for invoicing and other Account scenarios.
Account Pool	A shared resource pool for Accounts that are waiting to be claimed, assigned, or have been withdrawn.
Account ownership	The current Account Owner and the associated development responsibility.
Account retention limit	The maximum Account Quantity that a User can hold within a Specified Range.
Account tree	A Hierarchy of group companies, parent companies, subsidiaries, and other related Accounts.
Org Structure	A Hierarchy of departments and Personnel in an Account organization.
Influence map	A map of reporting, influence, or other relationships among Contacts.

An Account is a long-term business relationship. An Opportunity represents one potential transaction. One Account can have multiple Contacts and Opportunities. After a deal closes, the Account can generate renewals, expansions, or new Opportunities.

Opportunities and Sales Processes

Term	Definition
Opportunity	An identified potential transaction that requires ongoing work. It usually records the Account, Amount, Estimated Closing Date, Owner, and stage.
Opportunity details	Product or other business detail lines recorded under an Opportunity.
Sales Process	A standard path made up of multiple Opportunity Stages. You can Configure multiple processes for different Record Types.
Opportunity Stage	The Current Stage of an Opportunity in a Sales Process. Common types are In Progress, Closed Won, Closed Lost, and Invalid.
Stage task	A business action that must be Completed at an Opportunity Stage.
Entry criteria	Criteria that an Opportunity must meet before it enters a target stage.
Completion criteria	Tasks or conditions that must be Completed before an Opportunity leaves its Current Stage.
Opportunity Contact	The Associated Contact participation relationship for a specific Opportunity.
Opportunity decision chain	A map of key people, decision Roles, and relationship positions for an Opportunity.
Opportunity retention limit	The maximum number of Opportunities a User can hold within a Specified Range.
Closed Won, Closed Lost, and Invalid	Final Opportunity results. An enterprise can Configure reasons, fields, tasks, or Approval requirements for final stages.

Products, Pricing, and Quotes

Term	Definition
Product	A sellable, quotable, or orderable Product or Service. Opportunities, Quotes, contracts, and orders reference it.
Item	An object that maintains shared Product information. One specification item can correspond to multiple products.
Specification combination	A set of Specification Values that distinguishes a specification Product.
Unit / multiple units	Product measurement units. Multiple units let one Product use several units with conversion relationships.
Product Category	A hierarchical or Tile structure used to organize, find, and select products.
Product attribute	A configurable parameter such as Model No., material, or size. Attributes can support filtering, Pricing, and quoting.
Sales BOM	A bundled Product structure for sales configuration. It can contain components, Groups, and Constraints.
Price Book	Provides Product Price and applicable conditions for Opportunities, Quotes, contracts, and orders.
Saleable scope	A rule that controls the sales boundary by sales organization, Account, Partner, and Product.
Nonstandard Product	A Product that needs transaction-specific information or adjustments and cannot use only standard Product data.
Quote	A formal Product and Price proposal for an Account. You can Print, Send, and Convert it to a Sales Order.

CPQ is not a single object. Products, attributes, sales BOMs, Price Books, saleable scopes, and Quotes together form the configuration and quoting process.

Sales policies, accounts, and Credit

Term	Definition
Pricing Policy	A rule system that automatically determines Promotion results from Account, Product, Quantity, Amount, and Invoice Conditions.
Pricing Rule	A specific Promotion method in a Pricing Policy, such as Discount, price reduction, Fixed Price, Buy-and-Get Promotion, or Promotion Bundle.
Aggregation Rule	Summarizes detail lines into Quantity, Amount, or other results for Pricing Policy or Rebate evaluation.
Rebate	A business mechanism that returns money or products to an Account under enterprise rules.
Coupons	Discount vouchers distributed or claimed for use in eligible transactions.
Customer Fund Account	An account system that records different Account fund balances and transaction histories.
Account Credit	A formal or Temporary Credit Limit approved for an Account.
Credit allocation	Allocation of an Account’s Credit Limit by transaction records according to configured rules.
Credit repayment / release	Reduces allocated Credit through repayment or business rollback and restores Available Credit.

A Price Book answers, “Where does the base Product Price come from?” A Pricing Policy answers, “How is an eligible order promoted?” They serve different purposes.

Contracts and orders

Term	Definition
Sales Contract	A business object that records a sales agreement and its execution relationships. It can relate to multiple Sales Orders.
Contract progress	Records and displays the Contract execution process.
Contract renewal	Creates a follow-on Contract or extends a relationship from the original Contract.
Sales Order	The core transaction record for Account purchases. It drives Approval, shipping, settlement, and receivables.
Order Product	A detail line containing the Product, Quantity, Price, Discount, and other Sales Order information.
Order confirmation	Moves an order to an executable Status after the configured business or Approval Process confirms it.
Settlement record	Confirms a Settlement Amount from actual delivery or Service results. It can be a receivable source.

Contracts and orders do not have a fixed one-to-one relationship. A Contract can serve as a framework agreement for multiple orders. You can also create orders from Quotes, contracts, or other business entry points.

Revenue Management

Term	Definition
Receivable	A business record of money an enterprise must collect from an Account.
Periodic receivable creation	Automatically creates receivables on a fixed schedule for subscription or recurring Billing.
One-time receivable creation	A User manually creates a receivable from a Contract, order, or settlement record.
Contractual receivable creation	Creates a receivable from a transaction Amount already specified in a Contract or order.
Settlement-based receivable creation	Creates a receivable from the actual Settlement Amount after delivery or Service completion.
Quick Receivable	An Amount calculation and allocation tool for one-time receivable creation.
Pending receivable Amount	The total Settlement Amount minus the receivable Amount already created.

The Revenue Management section focuses on how to create receivables. For scenario selection, see Income Management scenario comparison.

Inventory, shipping, and delivery

Term	Definition
Warehouse	A physical or virtual space that stores products. You can also maintain storage locations.
Actual Inventory	The physical stock of products in a Warehouse.
Frozen Inventory	Inventory allocated to business but not yet shipped or moved outbound.
Available Inventory	Actual Inventory minus Frozen Inventory. This Quantity remains Available for use.
Safety Inventory	The minimum Inventory warning threshold set by an enterprise.
Batch / Serial No.	Identifiers used to track products by Batch or individual Unit.
Shipping notice	A record that sends shipping requirements to a Warehouse or ERP.
Shipping Order	A record of products, Quantity, logistics, and receipt results for an actual shipment.
Delivery project	A Project Management object for complex solution or Service delivery.
WBS	A work breakdown structure that divides a delivery project into manageable tasks.

Analytics metrics

Term	Definition
Stage conversion rate	The conversion of Opportunities entering a stage relative to those entering the starting stage.
Stagnation	The number of Opportunities that remain in a particular Opportunity Stage.
Loss	The number of Opportunities that move directly from a stage to Closed Lost or Invalid.
Average time in stage	The average Time that progressed Opportunities spent in a stage.
Sales cycle	The average Time from creation to Closed Won for successful Opportunities.
Close result analysis	Reviews success and failure factors using final Opportunity results and reasons.