Deal stages
Every deal moves through a fixed sequence of stages. The stage graph is part of the product and cannot be customized — an administrator cannot add, remove, or reorder stages, and cannot change the allowed transitions. The labels displayed for each stage can be customized per organization, but the underlying states and their behavior remain the same.
The seven stages
| Stage | Meaning |
|---|---|
Inquiry |
A customer has expressed interest. The deal exists so the request can be captured; no proposal is required yet. |
Negotiations |
The sales team is preparing proposals, selecting inventory, setting pricing, and iterating with the customer. |
Reserved |
The parties have agreed on a proposal and the selected inventory is held. Moving to Reserved requires at least one proposal on the deal. |
Booked |
The commitment is confirmed. From this stage the deal can be synced to CS Play for campaign playback. |
Paid |
Payment has been registered. The system requires payment details before a deal can enter this stage — see recording payment. |
Done |
The advertising period is complete. This is a terminal stage; no further transitions are possible. |
Canceled |
The deal was abandoned. A deal can be canceled from any non-terminal stage. This is a terminal stage. |
Allowed transitions
The transition graph defines which stage changes are legal:
-
Inquiry → Negotiations, Canceled
-
Negotiations → Reserved, Canceled
-
Reserved → Negotiations (back), Booked, Paid, Canceled
-
Booked → Paid, Canceled
-
Paid → Done, Canceled
Done and Canceled are terminal — once a deal reaches either stage, it stays there.
Reserved is the only stage from which a deal can move backward (to Negotiations). This happens when a reservation expires or when the parties need to renegotiate.
Inventory effects
Reserved and Booked both appear on the saturation timeline, drawn in their own colors. Proposals in earlier stages (Inquiry, Negotiations) do not count toward inventory saturation at all.
The two stages are not equivalent, however. Only Booked capacity is enforced: it is what the inventory picker hides, what proposal validation rejects, and what blocks a deal from entering Reserved or Booked. A Reserved proposal is visible on the timeline but does not stop anyone else from selling the same display.
See availability and saturation for how occupancy is calculated.
The payment prompt
When a deal transitions to Paid, the system requires payment information — payment type, amount, and date. The transition is rejected if this information is not provided.
See recording payment for the payment fields and constraints.
Auto-revert of expired reservations
When a reserved deal’s proposal review deadline passes, the system moves the deal back to Negotiations. Business processes that listen for deal stage changes react to this move.
Stage overrides
An employee whose role includes the deal override permission can move a deal to any stage, bypassing the transition graph entirely. This is intended for correcting mistakes or handling exceptional situations — for example, jumping a deal directly from Inquiry to Booked.
Stage overrides are independent of the standard stage-change permission. An employee needs both the general stage-change permission (to change state at all) and either a legal transition or the override permission (to make that particular jump).
See roles and permissions for how deal permissions are configured.
Editing and terminal stages
Deals in the Booked, Paid, Done, and Canceled stages are read-only. Deals in Inquiry, Negotiations, and Reserved can be edited, subject to the employee’s permissions.