Considering 1-way sync Quotes -> Opportunities, Wondering what i'm overlooking?

[blak3r]

In an attempt to make Sugar easier to use, my coworker asked me if we could eliminate opportunities in favor of just using quotes... after all "the fields are pretty similar". My gut reaction is this is a bad idea and we're not fully considering everything.

Consequences of not using Opportunities:
1) There are so many built in tools which make use of opportunities which would be rendered useless. Including:
* Forecasting
* Opportunity reports
* Pipeline analysis
* Marketing ROI (campaigns and lead sources)
2) Opportunities let you pick a dollar amount (and therefore estimate)... for quotes it's calculated.
3) They are easy to keep track of in things like dashlets since in general there are a lot less opportunities then accounts or leads.

Of those two, #1 is a dealbreaker, not going to redo all that... #2 is a reasonable sacrifice in order to make things simpler... and #3 is still doable just the module name has changed.

Then I got to thinking bout syncing quotes and opportunities with logic hooks. It'd be a one-way sync, quote -> opportunity. Would enforce it by making opportunities read only and more importantly hiding it altogether.

We would map these fields:
- Quote Stage == equals opportunity sales stage. (make drop downs match)...
- Total Amount --> Amount
- Valid Date --> Expected Close Date

Add the following fields to quotes:
- Lead Source, Campaign, and Probability... to the quote as well.

Assuming maintaining synchronization is possible, the only problems I forsee is...
A) Forecasting gets messy when there are multiple quotes sent to a prospect which would normally fall under the same opportunity.
B) Loose ability to quickly create an opportunity without an estimated dollar amount (instead you have to create a quote)...
C) Things like forecasting module would list the opportunities... clicking on the links to say edit it... would bring you to a read-only opportunity which would be potentially confusing or annoying.

Case A and Case C are pretty rare for us... and Case B is also fairly rare but could potentially even be supported by some clever logic hook code.

My Gut still says we're going to regret it... What are we overlooking?
Anyone done this?

[blak3r]

Any thoughts?

[tom01sugarcrm]

Hello. I am just learning to use sugarcrm now.
Playing around with it I also found the lack of link between opportunity and quote to be annoying.
In my team workflow a "won" quote means a closed opportunity. We will create a new opportunity for follow-up business. In this workflow it looks like our team needs to close both the quote and the opportunity unless I'm reading this wrong.

Have you managed to make this link?