Advice on using Accounts versus Contacts

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Posted on by Derek Bollig

I am new to crm and am in the process of moving our legacy crm to dynamics crm online. Now I am trying to model the crm to fit the requirements and am looking for some feedback if I am headed in the right direction.

Background: We are a wholesale distributor of a single piece of equipment in north america and we have a network of dealers in the U.S and Canada in which they sell the pieces of equipment to their customers.

What is the best way to manage this dealer and customer data in dynamics crm?

Option 1:

Create accounts for each dealer along with sub-accounts for each dealer locations.
Create a contact type in which the contact is either a dealer contact with a position and a customer contact that purchases a piece of equipment from that dealer account.
The dealer accounts purchase equipment through a order and when the equipment is retailed to the customer. Customer information is filled out and assigned to that order.

Option 2:

Create accounts for each dealer along with sub-accounts for each dealer locations.
Create dealer contacts as normal as noted above.
Assign customers accounts instead of contacts and somehow assign the customer account to the equipment order of the other dealer accounts.

Again trying to see which is way to use dynamics online to fit our business. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Derek

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RaviKashyap 55,410 Moderator on at

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Hi Derek,

In simple words, Account is used for an organization whereas Contact is used for an individual. You can have a Type field in both Account and Contact with the values such has Dealer/ Customer and then use it accordingly.

So basically the first option where you will store your dealers as account with the Type as Dealer. Any contact from the dealers will be added as a contact of type dealer. And when the equipment is retailed you could select either the Account or contact of type customer.

This is one of the basic requirement/ field while designing the account/ contact entity.

Hope this helps.

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Alex Fun Wei Jie 33,628 on at

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Hi,

first ask yourself,

when a contact purchased the equipment for his/her company(account), you charge to Company or contact ?

by any chances, will you sell to a walk in customer ?

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Aric Levin - MVP 30,190 Moderator on at

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Hi Derek, I am with Ravi on this one.

Basically use account for both deal and customer organization

Use contact for both dealer contact person and customer contact person

Create either a lookup field or global option set called customer type.

Customer Type can be either dealer or customer.

When you create a new dealer record or customer record specify the customer type and based on that field display the appropriate sections of the form that you need.

Hope this helps.

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Derek Bollig on at

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Thanks Ravi! This helps and keeps me going in the right direction

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Derek Bollig on at

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This is was very helpful Aric and will definitely keeps me moving.

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RaviKashyap 55,410 Moderator on at

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Glad we could help. Please mark the posts as helpful and close the thread.

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