Define the stages your deals actually pass through, and the probabilities that make your numbers honest.
Your pipeline stages are the backbone of everything Zipio shows you — the bar chart, the weighted pipeline, the forecast you take to a review. Get them right and the rest looks after itself.
The best stages describe a change on the customer's side, not yours. "Proposal sent" is weaker than "Proposal reviewed with decision-maker", because the second one is a fact you can verify. Keep the list short — five or six stages is plenty for most SMMEs.
Each stage carries a win probability, and that probability is what turns a raw deal value into weighted pipeline. Base the numbers on your own history where you can, and be conservative early in the funnel. A stage that "always closes" at 90% will quietly inflate every forecast you produce.
Stages only stay useful if deals move through them promptly and dead deals are cleared out. That discipline is the subject of the weekly deal review — see the course below.