I am fairly new to Zoho CRM and am confused by the Potentials tab. First of all, the terminology seems to use three different words to reference this tab - Potentials, Opportunities and Deals. Are they all the same? I saw a help feature that says Potentials is now called Deals, but it doesn't show that way in mine, so this is even more confusing.

Second, are Potentials created from existing Accounts or do they stand on their own? My workflow is generally to enter new prospects I come across as Leads, then to convert them to Accounts and Contacts when I actually start speaking with them. I can see the need for something like Potentials, but want to make sure I am using it correctly, so perhaps someone could explain. For example, if a new Account wants me to send them an application form, should I then turn it into a Potential, and track its sales progress from application sent to deal signed, etc via Potentials?

At the moment, I am just using a field in Accounts to define the deal stage, but seems like that is what Potentials is all about - thus, any clarification would be helpful!

Thanks,

David