Accounts & Contacts for Lightning Experience

Get Started with Accounts and Contacts

Describe what business accounts and contacts are, and explain how they’re related. Describe what a person account is. Add a new business account and associated contact.
  • Accounts are companies that you’re doing business with, and Contacts are the people who work for them.
    • They related to many other standard objects, so they are some of the most important objects in Salesforce.
    • Sole contractors or individual consumers are set using a special account type called a Person Account. This module assumes all accounts are business accounts.
  • Create new Accounts from the Accounts tab. Account Name is required by default.
  • Create a new Contact associated with an Account by clicking New next to the Contacts related list.
  • Demo Video

Best Practices with Accounts and Contacts

  • Know your company’s naming conventions for accounts.
  • Always associate contacts with an account.
    • Contacts without accounts (private contacts) are hidden from all users except the owner and the system admins.
  • Don’t let inactive accounts and contacts get lost in the shuffle.
    • To help, create a report to find accounts and contacts without activities listed within the last 30, 60, or 90 days.
  • Maintain active ownership.
    • If an employee leaves, help find their accounts a new owner.
  • Keep your records updated.
    • Always enter new info relating to an Account/Contact into Salesforce.

Understand Account and Contact Relationships

Understand different types of relationships your accounts and contacts can have. Relate a single contact to multiple accounts. Create a hierarchy among related accounts. Set up an account team.
  • Three types of relationships between people and Accounts::
    1. Relationships between companies (accounts) and the people who work at them (contacts).
      • Relating a contact to more than one account, called Contacts to Multiple Accounts.
    2. Relationships between your customers (accounts) and other customers (other accounts).
      • Relationships with companies and their parent companies, etc.
    3. Relationships between customers (accounts) and coworkers who deal with them (other Salesforce users).
      • Account teams show which sales reps are working on different deals.
  • Contacts to Multiple Accounts
    • Every contact needs to be directly associated with an account.
    • Any other accounts associated with the contact are “indirect relationships,” viewable on the Related Contacts list view.
      • Contacts to Multiple Accounts must be enabled by an administrator.
    • Help video
  • Account Hierarchies show how different accounts are related. If the parent company has been record for each of several accounts, Salesforce can generate a family tree.
    • Must be set up by adding Parent Accounts to the account’s record.
    • View via Accounts » small “View Hierarchy” link next to account name.
    • Best practice is to establish location-specific accounts in a hierarchy to a broader global account.
  • Account Teams help more than one person work with each account.
    • Need to be set up by an admin.
    • Each person on an account team can be assigned different roles and levels of access.
    • Possible to set up “Default Account Team” in personal settings. They save the user from having to enter the same members in to the same form over and over.
    • Guidelines for Default Account Teams video