Sales Pipeline Template
Every open deal, its stage, and what it is worth once weighted.
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| Owner | [owner] |
| As at | October 14, 2026 |
| Customer | What they are buying | Value | Stage | Close | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [add one deal per line] |
What is a Sales Pipeline Report?
A sales pipeline report lists every open opportunity with its stage, value, close date and next step, and shows what the total is worth once weighted. It answers a narrower question than the forecast: is there enough live work in the system to hit the number, and where is it stuck? A team that reviews the pipeline properly finds the problem in March. A team that reviews only the forecast finds it in June.
Sales managers, revenue operations teams, founders and channel managers run this report, usually weekly, and increasingly straight out of the CRM rather than a spreadsheet. It drives the pipeline review meeting, coverage analysis against quota, and capacity planning for pre-sales or delivery. Board packs use a summarised version of it. The rep-level version has a different job: it is the working list that decides where this week's hours actually go.
The report is largely built from personal data about named contacts, which brings retention and lawful-basis obligations under the UK and EU GDPR, India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, the Australian Privacy Principles and US state privacy laws. Long-dead opportunities still holding contact details are a common weak point in a retention policy. Separately, taking a pipeline export with you when you leave an employer can breach both confidentiality terms and data protection law — check your contract and the position in your jurisdiction before copying anything.
The pipeline is not a forecast. Weighting produces a portfolio estimate, not a prediction for any single deal, and no individual opportunity is ever worth sixty per cent of its value. The report also does not prove the deals are real: it shows what has been entered into the system. And it is not a performance league table — used that way it reliably produces optimistic stages and inflated values, which is precisely the failure it exists to catch.
What to put in a Sales Pipeline Report
These are the details this template asks for. Anything left blank is marked in red on the preview so you can see what is still missing.
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Business name | For example: Barton Supply Co. |
| Your address | For example: Unit 7, Barton Road, Columbus, OH 43212 |
| Account owner | For example: Sarah Chen |
| Open deals | One per line: Customer | What they are buying | Value | Stage | Expected close | Probability % |
How to write a Sales Pipeline Report
Define stages by buyer evidence, not activity
A stage should be entered because of something the customer did — attended a technical evaluation, confirmed a budget, issued a shortlist. Stages defined by your own actions, such as proposal sent, tell you nothing about progress, because you can send a proposal to someone who will never buy. Write the entry test for each stage on the report itself so it is applied the same way.
Capture value, date and next step per deal
Four fields make a pipeline usable: what it is worth, when the customer expects to decide, what stage it is in, and what happens next with a date. A deal missing the next step is not being worked. Run the report with that column visible and the review meeting largely writes itself.
Apply the same weights to everyone
Derive stage weights from your own closed history if you have enough of it, then apply them mechanically. The value of weighting is comparability across reps and quarters, which disappears the moment someone adjusts a percentage because a particular deal feels strong. Individual judgement belongs in the forecast categories, not in the weights.
Show coverage against the target
Put total open pipeline for the period next to the quota and show the ratio. Coverage is the earliest warning available: a shortfall found this quarter can still be fixed with activity, while one found next quarter cannot. Show it by rep and by segment, since a healthy total often hides a single territory with nothing live in it.
Flag stalled, slipped and ageing deals
Add columns for days in the current stage, how many times the close date has moved, and the date of last customer contact. Deals that have slipped twice rarely land on the third date. Making the slip count visible changes the conversation from optimism to evidence, and it is the fastest way to clear out deals that are already lost.
Common mistakes
- Leaving lost deals open because closing them makes the total look smaller, which produces a coverage ratio nobody can rely on.
- Defining stages by your own activity rather than the buyer's, so a pipeline full of sent proposals converts at a fraction of the expected rate.
- Reporting only the total value and never coverage by rep, which hides the territory that has no live work in it at all.
- Treating a weighted figure as though it applied to individual deals, then planning delivery capacity against half of a deal that will either land whole or not at all.
- Never recording close date changes, which removes the one data point that reliably predicts whether a deal will slip again.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good pipeline coverage ratio?
Three times quota is the figure most business-to-business teams quote, but it is only shorthand for one divided by your win rate, plus a margin. If you close one in two qualified deals you need less; if you close one in six you need far more. Work it out from your own closed-won history rather than adopting a number from an article about a different business.
What does weighted pipeline mean?
Each deal's value multiplied by the historical close rate of the stage it sits in, then summed. It is a portfolio estimate: across fifty deals it tends towards a sensible number, while for any single deal it is meaningless. Use it to compare periods and territories, and never to decide whether to hire against one large opportunity.
How many stages should a sales pipeline have?
Four to six for most teams. Fewer than four and the report cannot show where deals die; more than six and reps stop updating accurately, which is worse than having no detail at all. Each stage needs a one-line entry test the rep can apply without asking anyone. If two stages share a test, merge them.
When should a deal enter the pipeline?
When there is a named contact, an identified problem, and some evidence the organisation intends to spend — not when a form was filled in. Everything before that is a lead, and mixing leads into the pipeline destroys the conversion rates you rely on for coverage. Write the qualification test down, apply it, and be prepared to remove deals that never met it.
How do I deal with deals that keep slipping?
Count the slips on the report and set a rule: after two moved dates the deal goes back a stage and the rep confirms the compelling event with the customer in writing. If there is no event, the deal is not late, it is unqualified. Moving it out of the current period is not a failure; carrying it for three quarters is.
This page explains general practice and is not legal advice. Requirements differ between countries and, in some cases, between states — check what applies where the document will be used.