The number looks safe until the last two weeks.
A weekly pipeline review usually reads two things per deal, the stage and the amount. Both can look healthy on a deal in Commit for most of a quarter.
Then the last two weeks arrive, and deals that looked certain move out. The close date pushes, the signer was never in the room, or the buyer went quiet a month ago. The cause was in the CRM the whole time. The review never read it.
This guide covers what a pipeline review should check, how to run one every week, and how to test whether your forecast categories mean what they say. The method is the Magnetiz Pipeline Review Playbook, with a worksheet for each step.
What is a pipeline review?
A pipeline review is the weekly check of open deals before the forecast call, to decide which ones will close this quarter and which ones need help. It sets the number leadership takes to the board.
Most sales pipeline reporting is built around stage, amount and close date. Those three fields say where a deal is supposed to be.
They say little about whether it is still moving. A deal can sit in Negotiation with the right amount and a close date three weeks out while nobody on the buyer's side has replied in a fortnight.
A useful review adds a second layer, the evidence under each deal. Who is engaged, what is booked next, how often the date has moved, and whether anyone who can sign has been in a conversation.
Watch for a review that spends equal time on every deal. When the call walks the whole list, the deals that need the questions get the same five minutes as the ones that are fine.
Why do commit deals slip in the last two weeks?
Commit deals slip late because the report reads the deal's stage, and the evidence that the deal is in trouble shows up somewhere else first. By the time the stage or the close date changes, the quarter is nearly over.
Slippage is common. In the Ebsta and Pavilion B2B Sales Benchmarks 2024, drawn from 4.2 million opportunities at 530 companies, 44% of deals were pushed back.
Win rates on slipped deals fell 67%, most of all on deals delayed more than eight weeks.
The same research shows the early signals. Deals that stalled in a stage, went quiet, or had one person engaged on the buyer's side lost far more often. Each of those signals sits in fields most CRMs already keep.
So the late surprise is a reporting problem. The review is reading the field that changes last.
Watch for a Commit total that holds steady for ten weeks and then drops in two. That shape usually means the evidence had moved weeks before the number did.
What should a pipeline review check on every deal?
Check every deal in Commit or Best Case against seven evidence rules, each one a field your CRM keeps or a question the rep can answer. Five rest on published research with a stated sample. Two are sound sales method with no published slip data yet, and they are marked that way.
| Rule | Flag the deal when | What the research found |
|---|---|---|
| R1 | It has been in its current stage more than 1.5 times as long as your won deals spent there | Ebsta and Pavilion, 4.2M opportunities. A deal whose Qualification stage ran 50% longer than average was 120% more likely to slip |
| R2 | No activity in more than 7 days, and nothing booked next | Ebsta and Pavilion. Deals with more than 7 days of inactivity and no future activity had win rates 65% lower |
| R3 | Its close date has already moved out at least once this quarter | Ebsta and Pavilion. 44% of deals were pushed, and win rates on slipped deals fell 67% |
| R4 | Nobody who can sign has been in the deal, on a call, in a meeting or in a reply | Gong Labs, 9,056 opportunities. Deals without a decision maker involved were 80% less likely to close |
| R5 | Only one person on the buyer's side is engaged | Ebsta and Pavilion. Won deals had 9 contacts engaged by the solution stage, lost deals had 2. Gong Labs, 120M+ calls. Win rates were 30% higher when 4 or more people spoke up |
| R6 | No critical event is recorded, meaning no date or outside force behind the close date | Winning by Design's SPICED framework. No published slip data, needs more research |
| R7 | The steps from a yes to a signature are unknown | MEDDICC's paper process. No published slip data, needs more research |
The thresholds are starting points. R1 in particular should come from your own won deals, so pull the last four quarters and work out the average days in each stage before the first run.
These rules show which deals slip more often. They do not show why any one deal will slip, and the research is the vendors' own, with samples published and full methods not.
A flag tells the review where to look. The rep's answer, with evidence, decides.
Watch for a rule set copied in without your own thresholds. A 30-day Proposal stage is slow for one company and normal for another.
How do you run a weekly pipeline review?
Pull the deals closing this quarter, check each one against the rules, and put the flagged deals first, with one question per deal. The unflagged deals need no discussion.
Here is the order Magnetiz uses.
- Pull every open deal in Commit or Best Case that closes this quarter.
- Check each one against R1 to R7, using the fields your CRM already keeps.
- List the flagged deals, most flags first, then the largest amount.
- Write one question per flagged deal, from the flag the owner can answer with evidence soonest. Ask what happened on the buyer's side.
- Send the report to deal owners a day before the forecast call, so they arrive with answers.
- In the call, go through the flagged deals first.
- After the call, apply the category moves and record them in the report.
Each flag comes with a question the owner can answer.
| Rule | The question for the owner |
|---|---|
| R1 | What has to happen for this deal to move to the next stage, and when is that booked? |
| R2 | When did we last hear from them, and what is the next meeting on the calendar? |
| R3 | What changed on their side when the date moved, and what makes the new date real? |
| R4 | Who signs, and when do they join a conversation with us? |
| R5 | Who else on their side knows about this deal and wants it? |
| R6 | What happens on their side if they do not decide by the close date? |
| R7 | What happens between their yes and a signature, step by step, and who owns each step? |
End every report with the same totals line. Commit before the call, Commit after the call, deals flagged, deals moved out of Commit, and deals that cleared a flag with evidence.
The same five numbers every week are what make a quarter of reports comparable.
Watch for questions that ask who dropped the ball. Ask when the signer joins, and the owner usually leaves the call to book the meeting.
Get the weekly report template in the kit →
What does a pipeline review report look like?
A report lists each flagged deal with its evidence, the question for its owner, the answer, and the category after the call. The example below is illustrative. The company and every deal are made up.
Harbor Analytics sells software to mid-sized companies. It is week six of the quarter, with six open deals closing this quarter.
| Deal | Amount | Category | Flags | The evidence | Owner's answer | Category after the call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Halden Logistics | $120K | Commit | All seven | 30 days in Proposal, quiet for 11 days, pushed once, one contact, no signer | Our contact says the COO will sign but has not met us. No date yet | Best Case |
| Tamsin Labs | $38K | Best Case | R2 R5 R6 R7 | Quiet for 9 days, one contact, nothing booked | Sent the proposal, no reply yet | Best Case, owner to book a call this week |
| Ostrava Foods | $65K | Commit | R3 R4 | Pushed once, signer not yet engaged | Their finance lead was out. The CFO joins Thursday's call | Best Case until Thursday |
| Brightmere Health | $84K | Commit | R1 | 25 days in Negotiation against a line of 18 | Legal redlines back Monday, signature booked for the 14th | Commit, flag cleared with evidence |
| Wexford Retail | $52K | Commit | R7 | Signature steps not written down | Not sure if procurement is involved. Asking on Tuesday | Commit |
The sixth deal, Corvid Software, raised no flags and took no time in the call.
Before the call, Harbor's quarter looked safe at $367K in Commit. After it, Commit stood at $182K, with $185K moved to Best Case and a named question on each deal.
The board hears the smaller number in week six instead of week twelve. And Ostrava can move back to Commit on Thursday if the CFO joins the call.
What should happen to a deal that gets flagged?
One flag keeps the deal where it is and asks the owner a question. Two or more move it from Commit to Best Case, unless the owner shows evidence that clears a flag. The point is a forecast whose categories carry the evidence behind them.
Magnetiz starts teams on three moves.
- One flag. The deal stays in its category. The owner answers the question in the weekly report.
- Two or more flags. The deal moves from Commit to Best Case unless the owner shows evidence that clears a flag.
- R3 and R4 together. A pushed close date and no signer in the deal is treated as Best Case until the person who signs has been in a conversation.
These moves are a starting point set by judgment. The quarterly check below is what tells you whether they are the right ones for your deals.
Watch for flags that clear on a promise. "The CFO is joining next week" clears R4 when the CFO has joined.
How do you improve sales forecasting accuracy?
Check the forecast's record every quarter. Of the deals called Commit at the start of the quarter, how many closed? A category is an estimate, and comparing it with what happened is the only way to know if it is any good.
Douglas Hubbard, in How to Measure Anything, puts the test plainly for a sales team. "Of the large number of prospects she was 70% certain about closing, did about 70% actually close?"
The same test works for a whole team's categories, and for the slip rules themselves.
- Freeze a snapshot in the first week of the quarter. Export every deal closing this quarter with its category, amount and flags. Do not edit it. A snapshot changed after the fact will agree with the outcome whether or not the forecast was any good.
- Score the categories at the end. Write down what each category promised, for example that Commit closes at 90% or better. If Commit closed at 60%, the forecast was 30 points too confident.
- Score the rules. Compare close rates for deals with no flags, one flag, and two or more. If flagged deals close about as often as unflagged ones, the rules are missing your slips.
- Score each rule on its own. A rule earns its place when the deals it flags close less often than the deals it does not. Keep it, tighten it or drop it.
After two quarters, your own record outranks the vendor research. Replace the starting thresholds with the ones your data supports.
Watch for a forecast accuracy number that compares the final forecast with the final result. A forecast that is right in week twelve tells the board very little. The snapshot from week one is the one to score.
What if your CRM does not track the fields a rule needs?
Every rule has a fallback, so a missing field limits the rule for a quarter and still lets you run the review. Most of the evidence already sits in HubSpot or Salesforce under standard fields.
- Days in stage (R1). HubSpot keeps Date entered and Date exited properties for each deal stage. Salesforce keeps Opportunity History. Without either, add a stage-entered date and start stamping it today.
- Activity (R2). HubSpot has Last activity date and Next activity date on the deal. Salesforce has LastActivityDate, plus open events and tasks with a future date.
- Close date pushes (R3). HubSpot shows property history on Close date. In Salesforce, check whether your org tracks Close Date changes in field history. If you cannot see past close dates, turn on history tracking today. Every week without it is a week of pushes you cannot count.
- Signer and contacts (R4, R5). Associated contacts, their titles, and the meetings and emails logged against the deal. Salesforce teams can use Opportunity Contact Roles.
- Critical event and signature steps (R6, R7). Neither CRM has a standard field. Add custom fields, or ask both questions in the weekly review and write the answers into the report.
Admins rename fields, so check the internal name in your own portal or org before building a report on it.
Watch for a rule that is quietly skipped because its field is mostly empty. An empty field is itself a finding about the pipeline.
The pattern across a pipeline review that works
Every step above serves one question, whether the deals in Commit will close. The rules read the evidence weekly. The flagged-first report puts the right questions to the right owners.
The quarterly check grades the forecast and the rules against what actually closed.
The playbook holds a worksheet for each step, free by email.
The seven slip rules with the research behind each, the HubSpot and Salesforce fields each rule reads, the weekly report template with a question for every flag, the quarterly calibration check, and six sample deals run from input to report.
Get the playbook and the kit →
A forecast is a claim about what will close, and the evidence under each deal is where it gets checked.
FAQ
What is a pipeline review?
A pipeline review is the weekly check of open deals before the forecast call, used to decide which deals will close this quarter and which need help. A strong pipeline review reads the evidence under each deal as well as its stage and amount. That evidence includes days in stage, recent activity, close date pushes, and whether a signer is engaged. Flagged deals go first, each with one question for its owner.
What should a sales pipeline report include?
A sales pipeline report should include each deal's amount, forecast category, stage and close date, plus the evidence that shows whether the deal is still moving. Useful evidence fields are days in the current stage, last and next activity, close date history, the number of buyer contacts engaged, and whether anyone who can sign has been involved. A totals line for Commit before and after the forecast call makes weekly pipeline reports comparable across a quarter.
Why do deals slip?
Deals slip when the evidence under them goes quiet while the stage and amount still look healthy. In the Ebsta and Pavilion 2024 benchmarks (4.2 million opportunities), 44% of deals were pushed back, and win rates on slipped deals fell 67%. Deals that stalled in a stage, had no activity booked, or had one buyer contact engaged slipped and lost more often. Gong Labs found deals without a decision maker involved were 80% less likely to close.
How do you improve sales forecasting accuracy?
To improve sales forecasting accuracy, freeze a snapshot of every deal and its category in the first week of the quarter, then compare it with what closed. If Commit was meant to close at 90% and closed at 60%, the forecast was 30 points too confident. Score the slip rules the same way, by comparing close rates for flagged and unflagged deals. After two quarters, set the thresholds from your own record.
What is a good forecast accuracy for Commit deals?
A good Commit category closes at the rate the team says it will, and many teams write that line as 90% or better. The useful test is calibration, meaning Commit deals at the start of the quarter close at about the promised rate. Measure it against a snapshot taken in week one, since a forecast scored in the final week has had the whole quarter to correct itself. Track the gap every quarter.
What is a critical event in sales?
A critical event is the date or outside force that decides when a buyer must make a decision, as defined in Winning by Design's SPICED framework. Examples are a budget that expires at year end or a new site opening on a fixed date. A deal with no critical event recorded has a close date the seller chose, which makes it harder to forecast. Most CRMs need a custom field to track it.
Can you run a pipeline review in HubSpot or Salesforce?
Yes. Both HubSpot and Salesforce keep most of the fields a pipeline review needs. HubSpot has stage entry and exit dates, last and next activity dates, and close date property history. Salesforce has Opportunity History, LastActivityDate, Forecast Category and Opportunity Contact Roles. The critical event and the signature steps need custom fields in either CRM, or a question asked in the weekly review.