Automatically Create Deals for Based on Reporting Period Properties

Why is this hack helpful?

Forecasting future revenue and workload is crucial for many businesses, especially when deals or payments occur on a regular schedule. HubSpot’s automation tools are great, but by default, they’re designed to trigger actions as things happen, not to create a whole series of future deals up front.

This hack shows you how to use calculated properties and workflows to automatically create a new deal for each reporting period (for example, every two years), and to do it all at once. This is perfect for businesses that need to see all upcoming deals for forecasting, planning, or resource allocation, rather than waiting for each period to roll around.

Steps to Set It Up

Create Calculation Properties for Reporting Periods

Steps to Set It Up

1. Create the Required Custom Properties

You’ll need several custom properties to make this work. Here’s a list of the key ones:

• Number of Reporting Periods (Number):
  The total number of reporting periods for the contract or customer (e.g. 5 for a 10-year contract with 2-year periods).

• Time Between Reporting Periods in Years (Number):
  The number of years (or other units) between each reporting period. For two years, set this to 2.

• Time to first reporting period in years (Number):
  The number of years (or other units) until the first reporting period. For two years, set this to 2.
• First Reporting Period Date (Calculation):
  

• Last Reporting Period Date (Date):
  The date of the most recent reporting period (or the contract start date for the first run).

• Reporting Period Count
• Reporting Period Deal Creation Trigger (Dropdown)
  This will trigger the workflows to start. This is a dropdown select field based on "Create Deal/Deal Created"
• Unique Reporting Period ID
• Next Reporting Period (Rollup)

• Next Reporting Period Date (Calculation):
  This property will use a calculation to add the correct number of years to the last reporting period date.
  For example, if your last reporting period was 01/07/2023 and your period is 2 years, the next reporting period date will be 01/07/2025. To set this up, use the example below:

• Reporting Periods Remaining (calculation):
  The number of periods left to create deals for. This will decrement as each deal is created. To set this up, use the example below:

2. Build the First Workflow: Loop to Create Deals

The screenshot below should provide an understanding of how to create this workflow. There will be additional context after on steps that require additional information.

Enrolment Trigger:

• Has completed: Property Value has changed

• Property Name is "Reporting Period Deal Creation Trigger"
• New Value: is set to Yes

Create Deal Information:

Update the pipeline and stage to the relevant area where you would like the new deals to be created. See screenshot below.

3. Build the Second Workflow: Data Passing and Looping

The second workflow is used to re-trigger the first workflow if more periods are remaining and need deals to be created.

This will trigger the same as the other workflow, but update on whether there are periods remaining or not. If there are periods remaining, it will re-enrol in the other workflow again.

Wrapping Up

With this hack, you can automatically create all future deals for each reporting period up front, giving your team full visibility for forecasting and planning. This approach is especially useful for businesses with recurring revenue, scheduled payments, or long-term contracts. By combining calculated properties and clever workflow design, you can push HubSpot’s automation further and tailor it to your business needs.

If you need to adjust the frequency (for example, annual, biennial, or quarterly), just update the calculation in your date property. This hack is flexible and can be adapted to a range of recurring deal scenarios.

Happy HubSpotting!