How to Convert a Prospect into a Customer | Latner Software Documentation

Converting a prospect into a customer turns a CRM account you have been chasing into a trading account, so your team can raise rental contracts and invoices against it.

Overview

Every account in Latner's CRM starts life as a prospect. That is deliberate - you can quote, log activities and track opportunities against a prospect without it ever touching your accounts receivable. Converting is the moment you decide the relationship is real.

One record, two faces. A prospect and a customer are the same underlying account. Converting flips its Type from Prospect to Customer; nothing is copied, re-keyed or re-created.
Conversion is a two-part flow. Converting sets the account's status to Pending Approval. Someone then has to approve it before it becomes Active.
Prospects can be quoted, but not contracted. You can raise a rental quote against a prospect. Converting that quote into a rental contract is blocked until the account is a customer and Active.
Conversion is one-way. There is no option to turn a customer back into a prospect, and an account can only be converted once.
It can be done from either screen. Convert to Customer appears on the CRM Account screen and on the Customer screen - both run the same action.

Before You Begin

Conversion needs no system settings, but it does need the right permissions and a prospect to convert.

Requirement	Where to Find It
Convert To Customer permission	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › your group › Sales › Option
CRM screen permission	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › your group › Sales › Screen
Edit Customer and Create Customer (or their Cash (COD) equivalents), for the approval step	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › your group › Customers › Option
An existing prospect account	Sales › CRM › Accounts, or Options › Create Prospect (Account)

Convert To Customer sits under Sales › Option in the permission group screen, next to the unrelated Convert Sales Order permission

The person who converts the account and the person who approves it do not have to be the same. Converting only needs Convert To Customer; approving needs the customer permissions. That split is what lets a sales rep hand a new account to accounts receivable for a credit check.

Converting the Prospect

Step 1 - Find the prospect

Go to Sales › CRM and stay on the Accounts tab. Open Quick Filters and choose Prospect to narrow the list to accounts that have not been converted yet.

The Accounts tab with the Prospect quick filter applied - the Type column is what separates a prospect from a customer

Step 2 - Open the account

Double-click the row to open the account. Check the header before you go further: Account Type reads Prospect and the Date Converted field in the Customer Details card is empty.

This is also the moment to make sure the account is worth converting. Confirm at least the following, because some of them are harder to change afterwards:

Account Name - the trading name that will appear on contracts and invoices.
Billing Address and Billing Contact - once the account is a customer, these can only be changed from the Customer screen.
Branch - drives who is notified that the new customer needs approving.
Sales Rep - carried through to the customer record and to reporting on revenue by sales rep.

A prospect account before conversion - Account Type is Prospect and Date Converted is blank

Step 3 - Convert to Customer

Choose Options › Convert to Customer. There is no confirmation dialog and nothing to fill in - the account is converted as soon as you click.

Options › Convert to Customer on the Account screen - the item is greyed out with a tooltip once the account is already a customer

Step 4 - Check the converted account

The screen refreshes with three changes: Account Type is now Customer, Account Status is Pending Approval, and Date Converted is stamped with today's date. The Customer Name in the Customer Details card becomes a link through to the customer record.

The same account straight after conversion - Pending Approval is a real status, not a message, and the account stays in this state until someone approves it

Step 5 - Open the customer record

Click the Customer Name link, or go to Customers › Customers and search for the account. The customer screen carries everything the account had, plus the trading fields a prospect never needed: Credit Limit, Payment Terms, Damage Waiver, Purchase Order Required and the Pop-up Note.

Fill these in now if they are not right. Payment terms default from the Default Payment Term setting when the account was created, not from anything you chose during conversion.

The new customer record sitting at Pending Approval - the credit and billing fields on this screen are the ones worth checking before you approve

Step 6 - Approve the customer

Choose Options › Approve Customer. The option only appears while the customer is Pending Approval, and it disappears again once approved.

Options › Approve Customer on the Customer screen - this menu item is only on the list while the status is Pending Approval

Step 7 - Confirm the customer is Active

Customer Status changes to Active. The account can now be used everywhere a customer can: rental contracts, sales orders, invoices and credit notes.

The approved customer - Active plus Type Customer is the combination the rest of Latner checks for

After Conversion

The account keeps its code, its contacts, its sites, its activities and its quotes. Nothing is duplicated.
It drops off the Prospect quick filter on Sales › CRM › Accounts and appears under the Customer filter instead, as well as in Customers › Customers.
Latner raises a Customer Pending Approval notification against the account's branch the moment it is converted, and a Customer Approved notification to the person who converted it and to the account's sales rep once it is approved.
Date Converted and the converting user are recorded on the account, so the conversion is auditable.
Rental quotes already raised against the prospect stay where they are and can now be converted into rental contracts.

The Customer Approved notification - the sales rep who owned the prospect finds out without having to watch the account

Conversion cannot be undone. There is no option to turn a customer back into a prospect, and a second attempt is rejected with "You cannot convert an Account more than once". If an account was converted by mistake, deactivate it from the Customer screen rather than trying to reverse the conversion.

FAQs

The Convert to Customer option is greyed out. Why?

The account is already a customer. On the Account screen the option stays visible but disabled, with the tooltip "This Account is already a Customer"; on the Customer screen it is hidden altogether. If the option is missing entirely on both screens, your permission group is missing Convert To Customer under Sales › Option.

Why is my new customer sitting at Pending Approval instead of Active?

That is by design. Converting never activates an account on its own - it hands it to whoever approves new customers, so credit terms and a credit limit can be set before anyone hires equipment. Use Options › Approve Customer on the Customer screen to finish the job.

Can I raise a rental contract while the account is still a prospect?

No. Creating a rental contract is rejected with a message that the account is a prospect, not a customer, and converting an existing rental quote into a contract is rejected with "Cannot convert Account rental quote. Convert the Account Prospect to a Customer first". Customer invoices are blocked the same way. Rental quotes and activities, on the other hand, work fine against a prospect.

The account is a customer now, but I still cannot edit its billing details from the CRM Account screen.

Correct - once the type is Customer, the Account screen refuses changes to Billing Address, Billing Contact and Status, and tells you to "Go to Customer". Make those changes on the Customer screen instead. Everything else on the account, such as the sales rep, industry and lead source, is still editable from CRM.

Can I convert a lead straight into a customer?

Not in one step. A lead converts to a prospect first - Options › Convert to Prospect on the lead - and the prospect then converts to a customer using the flow above. The lead stays linked to the account it created.

Who gets told that a customer is waiting for approval?

The Customer Pending Approval notification is raised against the account's branch and reaches the users subscribed to it for that branch. Who receives it is set up under Security › Configuration › Notification Groups, where users are added to a notification group at company, division or branch level. If nobody at a branch is subscribed, converted accounts can sit at Pending Approval unnoticed - worth checking when you first set the CRM up.

Watch the Demo

Prefer to watch it? Step through the same flow here.