CRM Hygiene Audit Checklist

Purpose: A CRM doesn't get dirty all at once — it erodes field by field until the pipeline number on the dashboard has nothing to do with reality. Run this monthly. It takes about 90 minutes for a team of 10–15 reps.

1. Stale opportunity detection

• Pull every open opportunity with no activity (call, email, meeting, stage change) logged in 21+ days — flag for owner review
• Pull every open opportunity whose Close Date is in the past — these are either dead or mis-dated, both are hygiene failures
• Pull every opportunity that's been in the same stage for longer than 2x your average stage duration for that stage
• For every flagged opportunity, the owner must do one of: update close date with justification, log a next step, or mark closed-lost with a reason code

2. Duplicate detection

• Run a duplicate-contact report on email domain + last name match
• Run a duplicate-account report on company name (fuzzy match — "Acme Inc" vs "Acme Corporation" vs "ACME")
• Check for the same open opportunity logged twice under two different owners
• Merge duplicates using the record with more complete activity history as the surviving record, never just the newest one

3. Stage-gate mis-classification

For every stage in your pipeline, confirm the deal actually meets the stage's exit criteria — not just that a rep moved it there:

• "Qualified" deals have a confirmed budget holder identified (not just a form-fill lead)
• "Proposal Sent" deals have an actual proposal document logged/attached, dated within the last 14 days
• "Negotiation" deals have documented next steps beyond "following up"
• "Commit" forecast category deals have a close date within the current or next period — not 90+ days out
• No deal skips more than one stage in a single update — a jump from "Qualified" straight to "Closed Won" is a red flag for poor logging or a mis-recorded deal

4. Required-field completeness

For every open opportunity, confirm these fields are populated (adjust to your stage-gate model):

• Amount (not $0 or a placeholder)
• Close Date
• Stage
• Lead Source
• Next Step (free text, updated within 14 days)
• Primary Contact linked
• Competitor field (if in a competitive deal)
• Forecast Category

Flag any opportunity missing 2+ required fields as "not forecast-eligible" until fixed.

5. Owner & territory assignment

• Every open opportunity has an active (not departed) owner
• Owner matches the account's assigned territory/segment rules
• No orphaned opportunities (owner field blank or pointing to a deactivated user)

6. Activity-log health check

• Sample 10 opportunities per rep; compare logged activity count against email/calendar/dialer system activity for the same period
• Flag reps whose CRM activity count is less than 50% of their actual system activity — this is under-logging, usually a training or workflow-friction issue, not a discipline issue
• Confirm auto-logging integrations (email, calendar, dialer → CRM) are actually connected and syncing, not just installed

7. Closed-lost reason code audit

• Every closed-lost opportunity has a reason code (not blank, not "Other" as a catch-all)
• "Other" reason code usage should be under 10% of closed-lost volume — if higher, your reason code list is missing a real pattern
• Spot-check 10 closed-lost deals against the rep's own notes to confirm the reason code matches what actually happened

8. Data entry source audit

• Identify which fields are manually entered vs. system-populated
• Any manually-entered field with a completion rate below 80% is a candidate to automate or remove
• Confirm no two systems are both allowed to write to the same field without a defined source of truth (see the RevOps Tech Stack Audit Checklist, Step 4)

Monthly Hygiene Scorecard

Ongoing hygiene rules (enforce weekly, not just at audit time)

• No opportunity created without Lead Source populated at creation
• Stage changes require a next-step note in the same update
• Managers review their team's stale-opportunity list every Monday before forecast calls
• Closed-lost requires a reason code before the record can be closed (make it a required field, not a convention)