Working Your Deal Pipeline: The Six Steps

Deals move through six steps. Knowing where each one sits — and what is holding it there — is the difference between a pipeline you manage and a pipeline that manages you.

The six steps

The strip across the top of a deal names them exactly as the product does:

• 1. Enquiry — the deal exists: tenant and property attached
• 2. KYC — identity and eligibility of both sides established
• 3. Documentation — terms agreed: dates and rent recorded
• 4. Payment — schedule prepared so collection can begin
• 5. Registration — tenancy registered with the emirate's authority
• 6. Completed — registration is recorded: the deal's status becomes Registered and the tenancy is live

Under the strip the deal lists REQUIREMENTS FOR THIS STAGE and marks each one Done or not.

Moving a deal forward

Open the deal. The button names the destination, not the act: Advance to Documentation, Advance to Payment, and so on — so you always know where the deal is about to go.

If the deal is not ready, it does not move and says why. A compliance blocker reads Deal Cannot Advance — "This deal has 1 critical compliance issue that must be resolved before it can progress" — names the issue ("Awaiting verification: Emirates ID Required") and offers View & Resolve Issues.

That message is the fastest way to triage a stalled pipeline: it names the specific thing to chase, not a general "incomplete".

Deals do not move backwards

There is no "back" button, and that is deliberate: a tenancy that reached registration cannot un-reach it, and a history that pretends otherwise is worthless when a dispute arrives.

If a deal should not continue, end it honestly:

• Cancelled — it stopped before becoming active;
• Terminated — it ended before its term;
• Completed — it ran its course (this status comes at the end of the lease; it is not step 6, which only means registration is recorded);
• Renewed — it continued into a new term.

Each of these is a decision you record, not a step you undo.

Spotting bottlenecks

️ The Deals list does not filter by the six steps — those live on the deal itself. What the list gives you is All Statuses (Draft · In Progress · Pending Registration · Registered · Cancelled · Terminated · Completed · Renewed), All Compliance (Blocked · At Risk · Warning · Compliant) and All Emirates, plus a blocker count on each row — "2 Blockers".

Read the cluster from those:

• Many deals In Progress with blockers usually means clients are not sending documents — the portals let them upload directly instead of by email.
• Many at Pending Registration usually means something authority-side is pending.
• A row carrying blockers for weeks is the one to open, and the badge tells you so without opening it.

The cluster tells you which conversation to have. That is more useful than an average, because averages hide the one deal that has been stuck for a month.

Blocked deals

A deal can also be held by an open compliance issue. The block is the point: it stops a tenancy from progressing while something is wrong with it.

A Manager or Admin can advance past a blocker when the situation genuinely warrants it; an Agent cannot — the request is refused.

The override is not silent. It requires a written reason of at least ten characters, and it is written to the audit trail together with the user, their role and the list of blockers that were open at that moment. So the decision stays on record when someone later asks why this deal moved.