A custom CRM requirements document defines six things: the data you store (objects and fields, including any custom categories beyond a standard CRM), the pipeline stages and what must be true to leave each one, who may see and change what, which steps are automated, which systems the CRM connects to, and which reports managers rely on. Write these down before you speak to a vendor, and a custom CRM can be scoped in days rather than weeks.
Custom CRM projects rarely go wrong because developers cannot build a contact list. They go wrong because nobody has decided what a "qualified" lead is, who may reassign an account, or what happens when a customer is also a supplier. This checklist is for sales managers, operations leads and founders who need to brief a CRM developer, or who are deciding whether to build a custom CRM or configure Salesforce, HubSpot or Zoho. If you are building, the custom CRM development page explains how we approach it. The list works for any vendor.
1. Objects: what things does your business track?
Start with nouns. A standard CRM tracks leads, contacts, accounts (companies) and deals. Many businesses need more, and that is the usual reason to go custom.
| Object | Ask yourself |
|---|
| Lead | Is a lead a person, a company, or an enquiry? When does it become a contact or a deal? |
| Contact | Can one person belong to several companies? Can one company have many contacts? |
| Account | Do accounts have parents, branches or groups? |
| Deal or opportunity | One deal per customer, or many at once? Does a deal have line items from a price list? |
| Product or service | Do you quote from a catalogue? Are prices tiered or customer-specific? |
| Quote | Who approves discounts? What is the numbering format? |
| Ticket or case | Does after-sales service live in the same system? |
| Custom objects | Projects, properties, vehicles, policies, tenders, devices, shipments: whatever your business revolves around |
Custom objects are what many buyers mean when they ask which platforms allow "custom data categories beyond standard CRM fields". Packaged CRMs can often do this, with limits that depend on the plan and the product: Salesforce, HubSpot and Zoho each offer custom objects or modules, and the number you may create, the relationships allowed and the reporting available differ by edition, so check the current plan pages before you rely on them. A custom CRM has no such ceiling, because the data model is built for you, but you pay for the design. For custom objects, API limits and data portability scored side by side, see the CRM customization depth checklist.
2. Fields: what do you record on each object?
For every object, list fields with name, type, whether required, who can edit, and where the value comes from. Types to decide on:
- Text and long text, with a maximum length.
- Number, currency and percentage, with the currency or currencies in use.
- Date and date-time, with the time zone rule.
- Picklist (single choice) and multi-select, with the exact list of values and who can add to it.
- Lookup / relationship, linking to another object.
- Phone, email and address, with format validation and country rules.
- File or attachment, with size limits and retention.
- Calculated fields, such as weighted deal value or days since last contact.
Add three rules for each important field. Required when: for example, "lost reason" is required when a deal moves to Lost. Unique by: the duplicate-check key, usually email, phone number or company registration number. Visible to: whether a rep sees margin or only the price. Fields that are everyone's responsibility become nobody's, so name an owner for each picklist.
3. Pipelines: stages, exit criteria and probability
A pipeline is a sequence of stages a deal moves through. The usual mistake is naming stages without defining what moves a deal from one to the next.
| Stage | Exit criteria (example) | Probability |
|---|
| New | Lead created and assigned | 5% |
| Contacted | First two-way conversation logged | 10% |
| Qualified | Budget, need and decision-maker confirmed in fields | 25% |
| Proposal sent | Quote created and sent | 50% |
| Negotiation | Customer has replied with terms | 70% |
| Won | Signed order or payment received | 100% |
| Lost | Lost reason selected | 0% |
Decide how many pipelines you need (new business, renewals, partner referrals, service), whether a deal can skip stages or move backward, what happens to probability when it does, and what a stalled deal looks like (for example, "no activity for 14 days"). The probabilities above are placeholders; set yours from your own history, and do not copy someone else's.
4. Permissions: who sees and does what
Permissions are the area most often under-specified and most expensive to retrofit. Prepare a matrix.
| Role | See | Edit | Special rights |
|---|
| Sales rep | Own leads and deals | Own records | Request discount |
| Team manager | Team's records | Team's records | Reassign within team, approve discounts to a limit |
| Sales director | All records | All records | Approve any discount, change pipeline stages |
| Finance | Won deals and quotes | Invoice fields only | View margins |
| Admin | All | All | User management, exports, deletes |
Then ask the harder questions. Is visibility by owner, by team, by region or by account? Can a rep share a record with a colleague? Are some fields hidden from some roles (margin, credit limit)? Who may export the contact list, and is it logged? Who may delete a record, and is delete a soft delete with recovery? In a custom CRM the contact list is a commercial asset, so limit bulk export and deletion to named roles and keep a history of changes to stage, value and owner.
5. Automation: what should the system do for you?
List the repetitive actions and phrase each as a rule: when X happens, if Y is true, do Z.
- Assignment. New lead from the website goes to a rep by region, product or round-robin; a lead with no activity after 24 hours escalates to the manager.
- Tasks. When a deal enters Proposal sent, create a follow-up task for three days later.
- Stall alerts. When a deal stays in a stage longer than its limit, notify the owner and, after a further period, the manager.
- Approvals. A quote above the discount limit goes to a manager and cannot be sent until approved.
- Notifications. Email or in-app alerts on assignment, mention or approval, and what is sent by WhatsApp, which needs the WhatsApp Business Platform with verified business status and approved templates.
- Hand-offs. When a deal is won, create the customer and sales order in your ERP or accounting system, and a project or onboarding task for operations.
- Housekeeping. Merge duplicates on a schedule, archive stale leads, anonymise contacts on request.
Write each rule with a named owner and an exception. "Round-robin" without "skip people on leave" produces angry customers.
6. Integrations
For each connected system, record what flows, in which direction, how often, and which system owns the record. Typical connections: email and calendar (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace), web forms and landing pages, telephony, WhatsApp, accounting and ERP (see ERP integration services and systems and API integration), e-commerce and support tools. Check that each system has an API or an agreed import before you plan around it.
7. Reports and dashboards
Specify the ten reports your managers actually read, with columns and filters: pipeline by stage and value, forecast by month (weighted), conversion by source, win and loss by reason, activity per rep, time in stage, lead response time, ageing of open quotes, customer value over time, and service backlog if tickets live here. Attach the spreadsheet you use today. It is the best brief you can write.
8. Mobile, languages and non-functional needs
- Mobile. Do reps need to log visits, check in, capture orders or work offline in the field? A mobile app or a responsive web app have different costs and capabilities; see ERP and CRM connected apps.
- Languages and right-to-left text. Interface, data entry and printed quotes.
- Users and volume. How many users, records and attachments in two years.
- Availability and backups. Acceptable downtime and recovery times.
- Security. Single sign-on with Microsoft or Google, encrypted connections, audit trail. We design to support your data-protection obligations; compliance remains your organisation's responsibility.
9. Data migration
List the sources, the volumes and the fields to carry over, and who owns data quality. The migration process has its own guide: CRM data migration from spreadsheets, HubSpot or Zoho to a custom CRM.
10. Decision records
Finish by writing down who decides what: stage definitions, field additions, permission changes. Teams that skip this have a CRM that changes by whoever shouted last.
Using the checklist
Complete it as a team in one working session, with real data open on screen. Mark each line as must-have, should-have or later. The must-haves are the first release; the rest become a roadmap. If a line is hard to specify, that is a sign you need a pilot rather than more discussion. Timeline Digital starts with a free pilot of 2 to 3 key modules, commonly lead capture, the pipeline and quotations. There is no fixed timeframe: the schedule is set from your requirements in the Plan step. The free pilot of 2 to 3 key modules is ready in about 2 days, and with 1,200+ developers we have the capacity to deliver a complete system in as little as 2 weeks. The full project starts after you approve the pilot, and the scope, milestones and terms are agreed after it. Long-term support under a service level agreement (SLA) follows launch.
Timeline Digital is a custom software development company founded in 2013 and headquartered in Islamabad, Pakistan. This guide was written by Usama Asif and describes general practice for briefing a CRM build.