How to add notes, tasks, and files to a lead in your CRM

You have 47 active leads in your CRM. Three weeks ago, you talked to a seller in Birmingham who mentioned a new roof. You promised another seller you'd call back Thursday with an offer. You exchanged photos with a third about a foundation crack. Two weeks later, none of that lives in your head — and the CRM doesn't know any of it either. It has names and phone numbers. The substance of the deal is gone.

Notes, tasks, and files solve this. When you add notes tasks files to lead records as you work them, the substance comes with you. Each one attaches to a specific lead and lives inside the lead detail drawer:

• Notes. Quick text snippets from a call or conversation. "Spoke to seller, asked $185k, will counter Friday."
• Tasks. Things you need to do next, with a due date and optional email or SMS reminder.
• Files. Documents and photos that belong with the lead — proof of funds, contracts, property photos.

All three log to the lead's activity timeline as you add them. The rest of this article walks through how to use each one.

Open the lead detail drawer from the kanban or leads list. Click the 📝 Note button in the quick actions row at the top. A small modal opens with a single textarea. Every lead note real estate CRM users add follows the same flow — type, save, done.

Type your note. Click Save. The note attaches to the lead immediately and appears in the activity timeline with a timestamp. No formatting required — these are working notes, not formal records.

Notes are append-only. You can't edit a note once saved (so future you can trust the history), but you can add a new note that corrects or updates the previous one.

Click the ✅ Task button in the same quick actions row. The task modal opens with these fields:

• Title. What you need to do. Quick-button templates: Call back, Send offer, Schedule appointment, Follow up in 3 days.
• Description. Optional details.
• Due date. Date and time picker.
• Priority. Low, medium, high, or urgent.
• Status. Pending or done.

Hit Save. The task attaches to the lead and shows up in your task list (the Tasks tab in the back office) sorted by due date. Completed tasks log to the timeline when you mark them done.

To edit an existing task, click it in the lead's task panel or the global Tasks tab — same modal opens with the values pre-filled.

When you set a task reminder for lead follow-ups, you can opt in to email and SMS reminders. Two checkboxes appear inside the task modal:

• Email reminder. Sends to your tenant email at a configurable time before the due date.
• SMS reminder. Sends a text to your owner SMS recipients (the same numbers from SMS Notifications to You) at the configured time.

Both reminders have editable templates with token support. You phrase them however you want. The SMS template has a character counter to keep you inside one segment.

Reminders fire once per task. If you snooze the due date, the reminder reschedules automatically.

There's no dedicated upload button to attach files to lead records directly. Files reach a lead two ways today:

• Form uploads. A lead fills out a form with a file field (for example, "Upload property photos" or "Attach proof of funds"). The files save with the submission. They appear in the lead detail under the property section.
• Email attachments. You send an email from the lead detail drawer's ✉️ Email button. The modal supports drag-drop file attachments. Sent files log to the lead activity log next to the email entry.

Both routes give you a record of files exchanged. There's no separate "upload file to lead" button in the current build.

• Notes after every call. A two-line "spoke to seller, asked about price" beats a perfect-recall memory three weeks later.
• Tasks for next actions, not wishes. "Send offer by Friday" is a task. "Maybe send offer eventually" is not.
• Use task reminders for high-priority follow-ups only. Reminding yourself about everything trains you to ignore reminders.
• Don't duplicate the timeline. If you sent the email through the platform, it already logged. Don't add a note saying "sent email" — it's redundant.

Make it a habit to add notes tasks files to lead records as the deal unfolds. The timeline does the rest.

For more on the timeline that ties this all together, see Lead Timeline. For the CRM as a whole, see SiteStakes CRM Overview.