CRM Setup Guide

The CRM Setup Guide helps you configure your Hustack workspace, understand the dashboard, and start managing customers, contacts, opportunities, leads, tasks and reports. Follow these steps to get your CRM ready for daily use.

In this guide

Recommended setup flow
Dashboard overview
Accounts
Contacts
Leads
Opportunities / Deals
Activities and tasks
Products and services
Reports
Settings
Team and permissions
Integrations
API keys
Importing data
How CRM data fits together
First-day checklist
Recommended weekly routine
CRM best practices
Troubleshooting

Recommended setup flow

New workspaces work best when they are set up in a logical order. The flow below takes a typical SMB team from a fresh workspace to a working CRM in a single sitting.

Create or review your workspace

Open Settings and confirm your workspace name and company details are correct. This information appears throughout the app and on shared records.

Invite team members

Invite the colleagues who will use Hustack. Each member gets their own login and personal activity history.

Configure roles and permissions

Decide who is an Owner, Admin or Member. Owners and Admins can manage settings, integrations and API keys.

Add your key accounts

Start with the companies you sell to or work with. Accounts are the foundation that contacts, opportunities and activities attach to.

Add contacts

Add the people at each account — typically the buyers, decision makers and day-to-day points of contact.

Create products or services

If you sell defined products, services or packages, set them up so they can be reused across opportunities.

Create leads

Capture early-stage potential customers as leads before they become qualified opportunities.

Convert qualified leads into opportunities

When a lead is qualified, create an opportunity with an expected value, stage and close date.

Add activities and follow-up tasks

Log calls, emails and meetings, and always add a next action so nothing slips through the cracks.

Review the dashboard and reports

Once you have real data in the system, use the dashboard and reports to spot stalled deals and overdue follow-ups.

Set up integrations and API keys if needed

Connect Hustack to external tools using the API. See Using the Hustack API.

Dashboard overview

The Dashboard is the home screen of the CRM. It gives you and your team a high-level overview of pipeline health and the work you should focus on today.

Depending on your workspace configuration, the dashboard surfaces information such as open opportunities, pipeline value, upcoming tasks, overdue activities, recent activity, lead status, account activity and quick insights into recent performance.

Tip

Make the dashboard the first page you check each morning. It is designed to highlight what needs attention today.

Accounts

Accounts represent the companies, customers, prospects or organizations you do business with. They are the backbone of the CRM — almost everything else (contacts, opportunities, activities) attaches to an account.

From an account you can:

Create a new account and edit its details
Add contacts that work at that company
Link opportunities and deals
Add notes to capture context
Log activities and follow-ups
Track the full history of the relationship

Example: create an Account for each company you sell to or service, such as Acme Ltd., Novo Nordisk, or a consulting client.

Best practice

Keep account names consistent and avoid creating duplicates. Search for an existing account before adding a new one.

Contacts

Contacts represent the individual people related to an account — the actual humans you talk to. Each contact can be linked to an account so the CRM understands who works where.

Create a contact and link it to an account
Store name, email, phone and other details
Track role or job title
Use contacts as participants in opportunities and activities

Account = company, Contact = person at the company. An account such as “Acme Ltd.” may have contacts like the Head of Sales, the CFO and the Procurement Manager.

Leads

Leads represent early-stage potential customers that have not yet been qualified. They let you capture interest without cluttering the active sales pipeline.

Create leads from inbound interest, events, referrals or outbound research
Track the lead source so you can measure what works
Qualify leads with light-touch follow-up
Convert qualified leads into opportunities when there is a real commercial fit
Add follow-up tasks and track lead status over time

Lead vs. Opportunity: a lead is early-stage potential, while an opportunity (or deal) is a qualified commercial opportunity with an expected value and close date.

Best practice

Use leads to capture early interest without polluting your pipeline. Only convert to an opportunity once there is a real chance to win business.

Opportunities / Deals

Opportunities (also called deals) represent qualified revenue opportunities that move through a defined sales pipeline.

Create an opportunity and link it to an account
Add an expected value and expected close date
Set the stage to reflect where it sits in the pipeline
Attach products or services where supported
Log notes and activities as the deal progresses
Move deals through the pipeline and mark them as won or lost

Typical pipeline stages include:

Stage	Meaning
New	Newly created opportunity, not yet worked
Qualified	Confirmed there is a real fit and budget
Proposal	Proposal or quote has been sent
Negotiation	Commercial terms are being agreed
Won	Deal closed successfully
Lost	Deal did not close

Your workspace may use slightly different stage names depending on configuration. Use the stages that match how your team actually sells.

Best practice

Keep opportunity value, stage and expected close date updated. Reports and forecasts are only as accurate as the underlying deal data.

Activities and tasks

Activities and tasks track follow-ups and customer interactions so the full history of a relationship lives in one place. Examples include:

Calls
Emails
Meetings
Follow-up tasks
Internal reminders
Customer touchpoints

Activities appear on the related account, contact and opportunity, giving everyone on the team the context they need before reaching out.

Best practice

Create a follow-up activity after every important customer interaction so a next action is always scheduled.

Products and services

Products represent what your company sells. They make pipeline and revenue tracking more structured by standardising the things that appear on opportunities.

Create products or services with names and descriptions
Add pricing or rates where supported
Link products to opportunities to make deal value more accurate

Example: a consulting company might create products such as Senior Consultant, Project Manager, CRM Implementation Package and Monthly Support Plan.

Reports

Reports help you analyse CRM performance and spot what needs attention. Typical use cases include:

Pipeline overview by stage
Open opportunities by owner or account
Won and lost deals over time
Lead performance and conversion
Activity tracking and follow-up coverage
Account performance
Sales forecasting

Best practice

Review reports weekly to identify overdue follow-ups, stalled deals and high-priority accounts before they become problems.

Settings

The Settings area is where workspace configuration lives. Depending on your role, you can manage:

Tab	What it's for	Who can access
Profile	Your personal details, name, email and notification preferences.	All users
Company	Workspace name, company details, country and currency defaults.	Owner / Admin
Team	Invite team members, manage active users and assign roles.	Owner / Admin
CRM Configuration	Configure stages, statuses, lead sources, account types and product types where supported.	Owner / Admin
Integrations	API keys, Data Import and connections to external tools.	Owner / Admin
Security	Two-factor authentication, session and idle-logout settings, and security-related preferences where available.	All users (per-user)

Note

Available tabs and options depend on your workspace configuration and your role. Some features — such as billing or advanced notification preferences — may be added in future releases and will appear marked as coming soon when relevant.

Team and permissions

Workspace admins can invite users and assign roles. Roles in Hustack typically include:

Role	What they can do
Owner	Full control of the workspace, billing (where supported), settings, users and API keys
Admin	Manage users, settings and integrations; cannot transfer workspace ownership
Member	Use CRM features day-to-day; should not manage sensitive workspace settings

Best practice

Give users only the level of access they need. Only Owners and Admins should be able to manage API keys and integrations.

Integrations

Integrations connect Hustack to the other tools your team already uses. Common examples include:

Make
Zapier
n8n
Power Automate
BI and reporting tools
AI workflows and assistants
Custom internal scripts

Most integrations connect through the Hustack API using a workspace-scoped API key. See Using the Hustack API for full details on endpoints and authentication.

Note

Create a dedicated API key for each external system and assign it only the scopes that integration actually needs.

API keys

API keys allow external systems to securely access your workspace's CRM data. Each API key is scoped to your company and can only access data based on the permissions you assign.

API keys are created in Settings under Integrations / API Keys
The full API key is shown only once when it is created — store it somewhere safe
API keys can be revoked at any time, immediately cutting off access
Always assign the minimum scopes required for the integration
Do not share API keys unnecessarily, and never commit them to source control
Never use API keys in browser or frontend code where they can be extracted

For full request and response details, see Using the Hustack API.

Importing data

If you are switching from another CRM, you can migrate your existing data into Hustack using CSV import. The wizard lives under Settings → Integrations → Data Import and supports Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Products and Activities.

Both comma- and semicolon-separated CSV files are supported, so exports from HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, Monday, Dynamics, Copper, Freshsales — and Hustack's own exports — work out of the box.

Recommended import order:

Accounts
Contacts
Products
Leads
Opportunities
Activities

Best practice

Always import Accounts first. Contacts, Opportunities and Activities can then be linked to the correct account automatically by name. Use the duplicate strategy Skip on subsequent runs to safely re-import without creating duplicates.

For the full step-by-step wizard, field references, validation rules and troubleshooting tips, see Importing Data into Hustack.

How CRM data fits together

The core CRM objects are connected like this:

Account (a company)
  ├─ Contacts (people at that company)
  ├─ Opportunities / Deals (qualified revenue opportunities)
  │     ├─ Products / Services
  │     ├─ Activities (calls, meetings, tasks)
  │     └─ Notes
  ├─ Activities
  └─ Notes

Leads (early-stage potential customers, may convert into Accounts + Opportunities)

Example: an account called Acme Ltd. may have three contacts, two open opportunities, several notes, and a few upcoming follow-up activities — all visible from the account record.

First-day checklist

Use this checklist for the first day in a new Hustack workspace.

Review workspace name and company settings
Invite core team members
Confirm roles and permissions
Add 5–10 key accounts
Add contacts for those accounts
Create your first opportunity
Add follow-up activities
Create products or services if relevant
Review the dashboard
Review reports
Create API keys only if integrations are needed

Recommended weekly CRM routine

Once your CRM is set up, a short weekly routine keeps the data clean and the pipeline trustworthy. Most successful teams spend 15–30 minutes on this each week.

Review every open opportunity — update stage, value and expected close date
Clear or reschedule overdue tasks and activities
Add the next step on any opportunity that is missing one
Review new leads and qualify or disqualify them
Add missing notes from this week's customer conversations
Check reports for stalled deals and accounts going quiet
Archive or close opportunities that are no longer active
Verify that team members are logging activity consistently

Best practice

Treat this routine as non-negotiable. Pipeline accuracy compounds: small weekly clean-ups prevent the quarterly “the CRM is out of date” panic.

CRM best practices

Keep customer data clean and consistent
Avoid duplicate accounts — search before creating
Always attach contacts to the correct account
Update opportunity stages and values regularly
Always schedule a next follow-up activity
Use notes to preserve customer context for the whole team
Review reports weekly
Keep API keys limited in scope and rotate them when team members leave
Revoke unused integrations
Use clear, consistent naming for products and opportunities

Common issues and troubleshooting

Problem	Possible causes
I cannot see an account	You may not have access to that workspace The account may not exist yet Search or filter settings may be hiding it
My API key does not work	The Authorization header is missing or malformed The key was copied incorrectly (check for spaces or line breaks) The key has been revoked or expired The key does not have the required scope for that endpoint
A user cannot access Settings	The user does not have an Owner or Admin role
Reports do not show expected data	Filters may be active and hiding records Opportunities may be missing values or stages The selected date range may exclude the records you expect
My CSV import failed or rows were skipped	Required fields (like Account name or Opportunity name) were missing Dates or numbers did not match a supported format Linked accounts could not be found — import Accounts first, or enable “Create missing accounts” The duplicate strategy was Skip and matching records already exist See Importing Data for the full troubleshooting guide
A contact is not linked to the right account	The contact was imported before the account existed The account name in the CSV did not exactly match an existing account The contact was created manually without selecting an account

Next: connect Hustack to your other tools

Once your CRM is set up, the API lets you sync data with Make, Zapier, n8n and custom workflows.

Read the API documentation →