Tracking Your B2B Sales Pipeline with AskBiz
How to use AskBiz to monitor your wholesale prospect pipeline, forecast B2B revenue from new accounts, and identify which pipeline stages convert best.
B2B pipeline vs existing account management
AskBiz handles two distinct B2B commercial activities:
1. Existing account management: monitoring the health, spend, and payment behaviour of current trade accounts (covered in other articles in this section)
2. New account pipeline: tracking prospects — businesses you are selling to but who have not yet placed their first order
The pipeline view in AskBiz is designed for the second: managing your outbound wholesale prospecting and inbound trade account enquiries from first contact through to first order.
Setting up your pipeline stages
Go to Customers → B2B Pipeline → Pipeline Settings → Stages to configure your pipeline stages. Default stages are:
1. Prospect: identified a potential wholesale account
2. Contacted: first outreach made
3. Sampling: samples sent or range appointment booked
4. Negotiating: discussing terms, pricing, or first order details
5. First Order Placed: pipeline converts to active account
Customise these stages to match your actual sales process. For businesses with longer sales cycles (e.g. selling into major retailers), you may need additional stages (e.g. 'Buyer Meeting', 'Range Review', 'Commercial Sign-off').
Forecasting revenue from the pipeline
Each prospect in your pipeline has an estimated first-order value and a probability % based on pipeline stage. AskBiz uses these to calculate a Weighted Pipeline Value — the probability-adjusted forecast of new B2B revenue.
Weighted Pipeline Value = Σ (Estimated Order Value × Stage Probability)
For example:
- 3 prospects in Negotiating at £5,000 each × 60% = £9,000
- 5 prospects in Sampling at £3,000 each × 30% = £4,500
- 10 prospects in Contacted at £2,000 each × 15% = £3,000
Total weighted pipeline = £16,500 in expected new B2B revenue
This feeds into your revenue forecast as a new business component alongside your existing account run rate.
Identifying conversion bottlenecks
Pipeline stage conversion rates show where prospects are getting stuck:
Go to Customers → B2B Pipeline → Conversion Funnel to see:
- How many prospects enter each stage
- What % convert to the next stage
- Average time spent in each stage
If 80% of prospects convert from Prospect to Contacted but only 20% from Contacted to Sampling, the bottleneck is at initial engagement — either your outreach is not compelling or you are targeting the wrong accounts.
If prospects stall in Negotiating, the barrier is usually pricing, terms, or minimum order requirements — the data tells you where to focus commercial effort.