web
You’re offline. This is a read only version of the page.
close
Skip to main content

Announcements

No record found.

News and Announcements icon
Community site session details

Community site session details

Session Id :
Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived) / CRM Contact vs Account
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

CRM Contact vs Account

(0) ShareShare
ReportReport
Posted on by Soumyadip Biswas 140

We can capture individual customer information in Contacts as well as in Account. Is there any pros cons to do it in Contact or Account. Is there anything that I may not be able to perform if the Customer information is in Contact and not in Account?

*This post is locked for comments

I have the same question (0)
  • purwar purwar Profile Picture
    purwar purwar 2,836 on at

    Account : U can store company/division information . Contact : you can store person information. For ex a college have 3 branches:A,B,C, . You can create 3 account. and you can use contact for  student . U can also easily map these student to college.

  • Verified answer
    Michael Hammons Profile Picture
    Michael Hammons on at

    Hello,

    There isn't much you will "lose" by going with Contacts only. The primary thing is Account hierarchies, e.g. Parent Company, and divisions/subsidiaries of those parent companies. Another "con" would be rollup of activities/history to the account level; however, this can be overcome through reporting.

    It really depends on your needs. Accounts do provide facility specific information; we've also used it for tracking/managing Households. E.g. the Account is the Household and the contacts are the family members. There is nothing that will break by only using Contacts. In general, we have only seen Accounts "turned off" in B2C (business to consumer) situations, e.g. retail banking that deals only with clients (and not businesses), retail shopping, restaurants, etc.

    Mike

  • Sumit Bhatnagar 99 Profile Picture
    Sumit Bhatnagar 99 1,850 on at

    Hi,

    In CRM we have a contact entity and an account entity , usually Account is used to save information about Companies etc and Contact is used to keep contact information for Accounts.

    You can customize and use  CRM as per your business  need and can use any entity as you would like to use. There are some out of box relationships are present and you may create your own custom relationship too.

    If you explain more what exactly you wanted to achieve then it would be easy for me to give you some insight.

    thanks !

Under review

Thank you for your reply! To ensure a great experience for everyone, your content is awaiting approval by our Community Managers. Please check back later.

Helpful resources

Quick Links

Introducing the 2026 Season 1 community Super Users

Congratulations to our 2026 Super Stars!

Meet the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center Champions

We are thrilled to have these Champions in our Community!

Congratulations to the March Top 10 Community Leaders

These are the community rock stars!

Leaderboard > 🔒一 Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

#1
JS-09031509-0 Profile Picture

JS-09031509-0 3

#2
AS-17030037-0 Profile Picture

AS-17030037-0 2

#2
Mark Eckert Profile Picture

Mark Eckert 2

Last 30 days Overall leaderboard

Featured topics

Product updates

Dynamics 365 release plans