Overlap between Accounts and Contacts

[David Coon]

Hello,

I'm just new to BCM, so I'm still struggling with some of the basic
concepts. However, I understand that "Accounts" represent companies and
"Contacts" represent individuals. In many cases, I will link a number of
contacts to an account (say to indicate the employees that work for that
company). However, I'm confused about the overlap in fields between Accounts
and Contacts. For instance, both forms have fields for business address,
business phone number, web page address, etc. Two questions arise from this:

1. Wouldn't it make more sense for these forms to be mutually exclusive in
terms of the information they contain? In other words, wouldn't it make more
sense for the Contact form to only contain information particular to the
individual, whereas the Account form only contains information particular to
the company? That way, I wouldn't have to enter the same information twice.

2. As an alternative to the above, is there a way to have the
company-specific information populate the corresponding information on the
subordinate Contact forms? For instance, let's say I have a company
(Account) with 25 employees (Contacts) and then their office relocates. It
would be nice to change the address once (on the Account form) and have that
change automatically reflected on each of the linked contact forms. Is this
possible?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you...

Dave

 

[Luther]

Hello,

I'm just new to BCM, so I'm still struggling with some of the basic
concepts.  However, I understand that "Accounts" represent companies and
"Contacts" represent individuals.  In many cases, I will link a number of
contacts to an account (say to indicate the employees that work for that
company).  However, I'm confused about the overlap in fields between Accounts
and Contacts.  For instance, both forms have fields for business address,
business phone number, web page address, etc.  Two questions arise fromthis:

1. Wouldn't it make more sense for these forms to be mutually exclusive in
terms of the information they contain?  In other words, wouldn't it make more
sense for the Contact form to only contain information particular to the
individual, whereas the Account form only contains information particularto
the company?  That way, I wouldn't have to enter the same information twice.

2. As an alternative to the above, is there a way to have the
company-specific information populate the corresponding information on the
subordinate Contact forms?  For instance, let's say I have a company
(Account) with 25 employees (Contacts) and then their office relocates.  It
would be nice to change the address once (on the Account form) and have that
change automatically reflected on each of the linked contact forms.  Isthis
possible?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you...

Dave

The fields aren't mutually exclusive. Businesses are messy and don't
all follow the same rules. For some, contacts and accounts will have
the same address, but others won't. For example an Account may have
one head office, which is billed, while contacts may work at different
branch offices.

You can copy an account to a business contact, and then enter the name
ad home phone number of the contact. Or vice-versa. The mechanis for
copying or creating new contact from accounts, isn't consistent in
different versions of BCM. Try dragging a contact to the Accounts
folder, and similar operations. Or search this group for solutions
others have found.

 

[David Coon]

Luther,

Thank you for the help. I can appreciate the "messiness" of contact
information. I had given some thought to the matter of branch offices and I
assumed that's what the "Office" field (in the Account form) was intended to
resolve.

Just curious - what has been your practice? Where you have a whole bunch of
contacts linked to a particular company, do you fill in all the
company-specific information in each of the contact forms (business address,
website, etc.)? Or would it be better just to leave these fields blank and
fill in only the individual-specific information (like email addresses, cell
phone numbers, etc.)? Or does it matter one way or the other?

Thanks again for your prompt reply...

Dave

 

[Luther]

Luther,

Thank you for the help.  I can appreciate the "messiness" of contact
information.  I had given some thought to the matter of branch offices and I
assumed that's what the "Office" field (in the Account form) was intendedto
resolve.

Just curious - what has been your practice?  Where you have a whole bunch of
contacts linked to a particular company, do you fill in all the
company-specific information in each of the contact forms (business address,
website, etc.)?  Or would it be better just to leave these fields blankand
fill in only the individual-specific information (like email addresses, cell
phone numbers, etc.)?  Or does it matter one way or the other?

Thanks again for your prompt reply...

Dave







- Show quoted text -

I entered Business Contact specific information when I have it. If I
don't find some info in a Business Contact's form, I look the parent
Account's form.