Account related to a business to consumer setup for Dynamics 365 For Sales

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Posted on by CU08051724-0

Hi there,

I'm currently starting implementing Dynamics 365 for sales, field service and business central as our backbone.

I have two questions on accounts and contacts (D365), because we work Business to consumer. As I look from the standard perspective accounts are companies to setup. Contacts are individual persons who can be linked to an account .

Question 1: The standard setup for CRM involves accounts and contacts. It looks like I need accounts for work orders setup in field service and for invoicing in business central, but what is a logic setup to choose: Should I use accounts for b2c (so 1 account for each b2c customer?) Or is there a more logic setup to follow, since the fields for contacts is exactly the information which is needed.

Question 2 if account is needed: Is there a way to trigger account creation without filling in the companyname? Currently we are getting first name, last name and address and phone details from the website. Also, when manually adding a lead I don't want to let the employees manually fill in the companyname field. Only first and last name is needed.

Please advise on how to create a logic setup for this b2c customer :)

Regards, Rick

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Dynamics 365 Sales

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CU08051724-0 12 on at

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Account related to a business to consumer setup for Dynamics 365 For Sales

thanks for your kind help!
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Daivat Vartak (v-9d... 7,336 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Account related to a business to consumer setup for Dynamics 365 For Sales

Hello Rick,

Let's tackle your B2C setup in Dynamics 365 for Sales and Field Service. Your questions about Accounts and Contacts are fundamental to getting this right.

Question 1: Should I use Accounts for B2C?

This is a common point of confusion when adapting a traditionally B2B-focused CRM to a B2C model. Here's the logic to consider:

Standard Purpose of Accounts: You're correct. Typically, Accounts represent companies or organizations you do business with. Contacts represent the individual people within those organizations.

B2C Scenario: In your B2C scenario, your primary business relationship is with the individual person. The information you need (name, address, phone) naturally fits within the Contact entity.

Field Service & Business Central Requirements: You've correctly identified that Field Service Work Orders and Business Central Invoicing often require an Account to be associated. This is where the decision point lies.

Recommended Logic for B2C:

For your B2C setup, the most logical and often implemented approach is to still use the Account entity for each individual B2C customer.

Here's why:

Meeting System Requirements: It satisfies the requirement of having an Account linked to Work Orders and Invoices.

Future Scalability: Even in a B2C model, you might later want to track things at a household level or group individuals. Using Accounts provides this flexibility in the future.

Consistency with Standard Functionality: While it might feel a bit counter-intuitive initially, it aligns with the underlying data model of Dynamics 365, making integrations and leveraging standard features smoother.

Therefore, the recommendation is: Yes, use one Account record for each B2C customer.

Question 2: Triggering Account Creation Without Company Name

Yes, there are several ways to handle Account creation without requiring the "Company Name" field for your B2C customers:

Modify the Account Form:

Go to Settings > Customizations > Customize the System.

Expand Entities and select the Account entity.

Go to Forms and open the Main Account form (or the form your users will be using).

Remove the Requirement: Select the "Company Name" field on the form and uncheck the "Field Requirement" property (set it to "Optional" or "Business Recommended" if you still want it sometimes).

Save and Publish the form.

By making the "Company Name" field optional on the form, your employees won't be forced to fill it in when manually creating Leads or Accounts.

Automated Account Creation from Website Leads:

When a lead comes in from your website with first name, last name, and address details, you can create an Account record automatically using a Power Automate flow.

In the flow, when a new Lead is created:

Create a new Account record.

You can populate the Account's "Name" field with a combination of the Contact's first and last name (e.g., "{First Name} {Last Name}").

Map the address and phone details from the Lead to the corresponding fields on the new Account.

You would then also create a Contact record and link it to this newly created Account.

Automated Account Creation During Manual Lead Creation:

You can use a Business Rule or a Power Automate flow triggered on the creation of a Lead to automatically create an associated Account if one doesn't exist.

The logic could be: When a Lead is created and saved, if there's no existing "Company" (Account) linked, create a new Account with the "Name" field set to the Lead's full name.

Logic Setup for B2C:

Here's a potential logic setup for your B2C scenario:

Leads: Capture initial interest with individual contact details (first name, last name, address, phone). The "Company" field on the Lead form can be optional.

Accounts: When a Lead is qualified, automatically (via workflow/flow) or manually, create an Account record for the individual consumer. The "Name" of the Account would typically be the consumer's full name (e.g., "John Doe").

Contacts: Also during Lead qualification, create a Contact record for the individual consumer. Link this Contact to the newly created Account.

Work Orders (Field Service): Associate Work Orders with the Account record of the consumer.

Invoicing (Business Central): Invoice the Account record of the consumer. The Contact record would be the primary person you're interacting with.

This approach uses Accounts to satisfy the system requirements while keeping the individual person (your customer) as the central point of your sales and service processes through the Contact record linked to their individual Account.

Which of these approaches for handling the "Company Name" field and the overall B2C logic resonates most with your needs? We can then dive deeper into the specific steps for implementation.

If my answer was helpful, please click Like, and if it solved your problem, please mark it as verified to help other community members find more. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me.

My response was crafted with AI assistance and tailored to provide detailed and actionable guidance for your Microsoft Dynamics 365 query.

Regards,

Daivat Vartak
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Tom_Gioielli 1,565 on at

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Account related to a business to consumer setup for Dynamics 365 For Sales

Field Service definitely expects Accounts, so if that is a core part of your requirement you will want to ensure you have Account records ready to go. I can see this going in one of two ways.

If you are a service organization (I'll use an HVAC company as an example), you can create Accounts as a Household and then Contacts to be members of the household. This can be beneficial as you may be contacted by more than one person at that address who is authorized to request work be completed. Many, or most, households may only have one contact, but that's fine.

This gives you the benefit of tracking more on address/location instead of by person. You could even extend this a bit, and rather than have household it can simply be a home address. This way, if the home is sold to someone else in the future you don't lose service history or legacy information even with a new owner.

If you truly are just B2C and there is no need for a concept such as households or locations, then you can focus on the Contact table. This will work fine for D365 Sales, but for Field Service you need Account records for a lot of the Out of Box processes

Either way, you can use simply D365 workflows to either (1) Automatically create a primary contact for an Account or (2) Create a generic Account for a contact without requiring user interaction.

If this answer helped, please consider marking as verified.

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