Address & account management

[george_bbch]

I was wondering what's the best way to handle following address management tasks in sugarCRM:
- an account with 1 billing address and several shipping addresses
- a lead, contact or even account that works for one or several other accounts, i.e., a consulting company which deals with opportunities, quotes, etc for their own customers (who pay the bills directly)
- moving a contact to another account
- retiring a contact from an account

as well as account-related:
- account clusters and segments
- account relationships

[kpit]

I was wondering what's the best way to handle following address management tasks in sugarCRM:
- an account with 1 billing address and several shipping addresses

There are two ways you could do this. Create a Contact for each address for that account that has the shipping address for each location and use the account address for billing.

The second option is to create a seperate account for each location in addtion to the Billing Address account then and for all shipping addresses you set Member of field to the Billing address for the sub-accounts created for shipping.

Each of the methods have its ups and downs.

- a lead, contact or even account that works for one or several other accounts, i.e., a consulting company which deals with opportunities, quotes, etc for their own customers (who pay the bills directly)

I am not quite sure what you mean by this. Do you mean accounts are working for accounts? Please explain more about what you mean.

- moving a contact to another account

That is easy edit the contact and select the new account. the history stays with the account and the contact. all new information goes under the new account. First you will be able to track where people have worked before by doing it this way and you will maintain historical information on dealings with this individual.

- retiring a contact from an account

This is easy. just edit the contact and remove the association from the Account and clear the contact information. You should never delete a contact due to historical information is maintained by the Account and makes refrence to a contact.

as well as account-related:
- account clusters and segments
- account relationships

This could be handled by creating Seperate Accounts and using member of to associate the accounts. You just need 1 Master Account that they refer to via association. An example is as follows:

Master Account
Sub-Account 1 Member of Master Account
Sub-Account 2 Member of Master Account
Sub-Account 2a Member of Sub-Account 2
Sub-Account 2b Member of Sub-Account 2
Sub-Account 2ba Member of Sub-Account 2b
Sub-Account 2bb Member of Sub-Account 2b
...

Complex Relationships can be made out of the Accounts.

I hope this helps you out on the relationship building.

[george_bbch]

Hi Max,

Thanks for the fast help.

I am not quite sure what you mean by this. Do you mean accounts are working for accounts? Please explain more about what you mean.

Well, imagine a guy who has his own company but also works for another one (as an external consultant, if you want). If it's a job he can deal with, he does it on his own, otherwise he forwards it to the other company, however remains the main contact (aka Primary Decision Maker, if you like) for that job (=opportunity).
I hope I made myself clear.

Kind regards,
George

[kpit]

Hi Max,
Well, imagine a guy who has his own company but also works for another one (as an external consultant, if you want). If it's a job he can deal with, he does it on his own, otherwise he forwards it to the other company, however remains the main contact (aka Primary Decision Maker, if you like) for that job (=opportunity).
I hope I made myself clear.

This sounds like you would have him both as a user of sugar and have an account setup for his company.

[george_bbch]

Based on some tests, I've tried to sketch the relationships between contacts and accounts, as well as those among contacts, accounts, opportunities and quotes (see attached graphics). Could someone help me figure out if they are ok?

[kpit]

Based on some tests, I've tried to sketch the relationships between contacts and accounts, as well as those among contacts, accounts, opportunities and quotes (see attached graphics). Could someone help me figure out if they are ok?

I see only on problem regarding your contacts relationships with Accounts. A contact can only one Account that it is associated. But there is a way to associate a contact with task, meeting, calls that can be assigned to or linked to multiple Accounts and contacts.

Your address management in quotes looks right but I would have to dig into it more to be sure maybe someone from the sugar team could chime in on that one.

[george_bbch]

I'm getting back on this topic with a few issues related to leads, contacts and accounts:
- in http://www.sugarcrm.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3418 ]this[/URL] post (http://www.sugarcrm.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3418) there is a concept of "prospect" described. Apparently, it has been removed from the latest version of sugarCRM. Could someone help me figure out how prospects can be now handled?
- after converting a lead to a contact, it still remains in the list of leads (its status is changed to "Converted") and is also recorded under the account's lead list (although no status is by default visible), as well as under the contact's lead list. What's the reason for this?

[kpit]

There are several possable reasons for keeping leads set up as conversion and listed in the leads. one is to track the conversion rate from leads to actual accounts and contacts. Mostly deleting something in a CRM is bad but historical information would be lost. Leads are kept seperate from contacts until they become an oppertunity or an active account and contact. Historicaly every conversation, email, meeting ... etch is important to keep good notes and records to build a better relationship with the clients. We have collected information over time that is very valuble especially in regards to how to best deal with that individual or company to get the sales and develop the account to produce more revenues.

First Refrences to the account, contact, oppertunity and leads must be maintained to provide a relationship flow and development with a complete historical context. For example when a contact no longer works for an account. We do not delete the contact we just remove the relationship to the account. All historical dealing is still related to the contact and the Account but the contact will no longer show up in that account list as a contact for that Account. Then If that Contact shows up again at another account We maintain historical refrences to the work they did with the other account as well as the new account with the ability to build on past relationships with them at another or new account. This allows us to know how the contact deals with us and builds an instant relationship with that new client/Account.

This will cause the data to grow in size but does provide increase agility of the sales force and improved relationshiips with the customer/clients. I hope this helps you in your understanding of why leads are not deleted because they may have reverences to relevant converstation, meetings notes and documentation that will be relevant to the leads as well as the total relationship over time.

[george_bbch]

Thanks for the explanations, Max.

Another question: what would be the typical usage of a lead / contact's "Other adress" information? Is it (automatically) used somewhere in the system?

Cheers,
George

[rbemrose]

This is easy. just edit the contact and remove the association from the Account and clear the contact information. You should never delete a contact due to historical information is maintained by the Account and makes refrence to a contact.

I am also intrested in a solutions for retiring a contact from an account. The only way I can easily achieve this is to assign the contact to a dummy account, say "00-RETIRED-CONTACT". (Using SugarCRM 3.5.1e)

I would be interested to hear from others how to handle retired contacts.

Regards,
Rich