Accounts and/or Contacts

[Rachel_Young]

Question: by guido » Sat Mar 20, 2010 2:08 am

1. We deal with very small businesses, often sole proprietors. Should we treat these as "Accounts" with the prop. as the primary contact? Or do we create an "Account" for the business, and a separate "Contact" record for the owner? If I send an email via the Contacts Module to Joe Blow, will that show up on the Notes for Joe Blow Plumbing in the Accounts Module?

2. How should we treat businesses which are prospects for our services, but not yet customers? Are these Accounts at a certain "stage" that we enter? How do you view Accounts and Contacts in FM starting Point?

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Answer: This is a fantastic question...so here is our take on Contacts and Accounts:

(1) Some Business (including my own company) treat contacts as the primary entity for a business relationship. That means that we probably have 1 to 5 contacts per business, and those contacts are cross related by the company name. That being said, there is extra overhead and effort to maintain an accounts module, and we find that it is a waste of our time to do this. A number of small business agree with this idea. So for these businesses, accounts are not handled separately from contacts. From our perspective, the account module and associated screens may be removed from FMSP. The contact screen can be beefed out a bit to encompass all contact and account data...on a single screen and single table.

(2) Some Businesses...certainly all medium or larger business...deal with accounts separately than contacts. So for these businesses, FMSP is ready to go.

We built FMSP to support both models.

FMSP does not mix the notes between Contacts and Accounts. It certainly could...and maybe it should. This is one of those issues that would need additional discussion...before we changes the template. I assume you feel it should do this. Also...keep in mind, there is no reason you could not make the appropriate changes to FMSP yourself...on your own copy.

Feel free to chime in with your thoughts on this.

Best Regards,
Richard Carlton

[Richard Carlton]

This is one of the topics covered in our various training videos:

 

www.learningfilemaker.com

 

This video course covers FileMaker Pro 13 and FM Starting Point... both!