> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.beaconrevenue.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Deal stage

> The position a deal occupies in your pipeline, one of six, plus the two states a deal ends in, and what moves it from one to the next.

## What it is

Measured. The position a deal occupies in your sales pipeline, one of six, plus the two states a deal ends in.

Beacon holds its own six-stage pipeline, and your CRM's stages map onto it. Most CRMs run five to eight stages; the mapping is confirmed once, when Beacon is set up. Your CRM's own stage field keeps working exactly as it did. Where the two disagree, the stage published here is the one every other Beacon figure reads.

The six are fixed. They are the same six for every company Beacon runs, which is what makes a deal in one segment comparable with a deal in another. Changing the set is possible and deliberate: it takes joint approval from your sales lead and Beacon, and triggers a review of everything downstream that depends on it.

Beacon takes over at the point a lead becomes a qualified opportunity, and hands off at the point a deal is won.

## How it is calculated

Measured.

| # | Stage            | What it means                                                    |
| - | ---------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 1 | `new`            | The opportunity exists; qualification is not complete            |
| 2 | `discovery`      | Qualification is active                                          |
| 3 | `demo`           | The solution has been demonstrated and technical fit validated   |
| 4 | `proposal`       | A commercial proposal has been delivered and is under evaluation |
| 5 | `negotiation`    | Terms are under negotiation and a mutual plan is in motion       |
| 6 | `verbal_closing` | A verbal commitment exists; contracting is in flight             |

A deal ends in one of two states: `closed_won` or `closed_lost`.

The current stage is the most recent transition event, read together with whether the milestones defining that stage are complete. Every transition is recorded — the time, the previous stage, the new stage, and which milestones were complete when it happened.

Stages can be skipped, and they can be reversed. Neither is blocked, and both are tracked, because both carry meaning. A deal advanced without its milestones complete is a known predictor of trouble after the sale. A deal moving between two adjacent stages and back is showing friction that steady forward movement would hide.

Enumerated values are lowercase with underscores on every door.

## Where it comes from

| Source                                   | What it supplies                                                                   | Required |
| ---------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------- |
| Your CRM — deal object                   | The deal, its owner, its account, its stage, and the full history of stage changes | Yes      |
| Your CRM — activity and milestone events | Whether the milestones defining a stage are complete                               | Yes      |

Without a connected CRM there is no stage. This value has no reduced form and no substitute source: it is not estimated from deal age, from activity volume, or from any other figure. A request for it returns a named reason instead.

Beacon needs the deals it reads to attach reliably to the right accounts, and the stage-change history to be intact. Where either falls below its threshold, the value is held rather than published at lower quality.

## How fresh it is

The stage is recalculated on every transition event, not on a schedule. A deal that moved this morning shows this morning's stage. A deal that has not moved in six weeks shows the stage it moved into six weeks ago, and the date it did.

Every response carries `as_of`, the moment the value was last calculated. Read that rather than assuming a cadence.

## Currency and rounding

Neither applies. A stage is a category, not a number, and carries no money value.

## What changes it

A transition event in your CRM, once the milestones defining the new stage are evaluated. Nothing else moves it — not time in stage, not deal size, not the health of the deal.

A deal can be put back to an earlier stage. That is a legitimate correction when a stage was recorded before its work was done, and it is recorded like any other transition, with the previous stage kept.

The six stages themselves change only by joint approval between your sales lead and Beacon, outside the ordinary review cycle, and only with a review of every figure that depends on them. Typical time in each stage differs by segment; the stages do not.

## What it is not

* **Not your CRM's stage field.** That field is an input. Beacon maps it onto the six and publishes the result.
* **Not `lifecycle_stage`.** That is the position an account occupies after the sale closes. This is the position a deal occupies before it.
* **Not `days_in_stage`.** That is how long the deal has been where it is; this is where it is.
* **Not a probability.** A later stage is not a higher chance of closing. `deal_probability` answers that, separately.
* **Not a health signal.** A deal can sit in `negotiation` and be in trouble. `deal_health` answers that, separately.