Conversion of contact to account?

[regev]

How do we convert contact to account?

Also, when we are entering a new company who is not a client and not a prospect just have relations with like a supplier etc. what is the best way? When we enter a contact it always ask for a name and does not offer to create a company.

Your help will be most appreciated!! please send directly to regev@tnuanet.com

Regev
--
Doron Regev Co-Ceo
Tnuanet Israel
www.tnuanet.com
972-4-6308085 Office
972-52-6811094 Mobile

[Angel]

I don't believe you can convert a contact into an account.

As for entering suppliers, why not enter them as Accounts?

[lurkerfilms]

I think this feature should be added. Contacts can become leads and accounts. There really is no reason why not to allow this.

I am looking into doing just this as a patch.

[susiewilliams]

Hi Lurkerfilms,


The premise of Sugar (and most CRM systems) is that a contact refers to a single person, whereas an account refers to the company that person works for. So, you can map your business dealings with the company (or account), even though the people in that account may come and go. That's why it's set up to have a one to many relationship between contacts and accounts. You're setting up a business relationship with that account, to establish purchase orders for buying merchandise, for example.

A lead or an opportunity is a possibility to sell something to that account... you can sell to the company multiple times, so that's why there's a one to many relationship between opportunities and accounts. In any given opportunity, contacts from the company can be involved in the sale (such as the business contact, the purchasing contact, the decision maker, or the executive sponsor).

My advice- before you make this customization, take a good look at the business process you're trying to map (i.e.- how your sales people sell to their customers), then design/modify the system accordingly. You might also check out this podcast, which talks about accounts vs. opportunities, or this one, which talks about leads vs. contacts.

[lurkerfilms]

Susie,

There are many reasons why a contact may need to be converted back to a lead or create an account for it. A very simple reason is the relationship of the contact has changed.

For example I met someone at a tradeshow, I am not doing business with them but a useful contact to have. I am not importing them into the system as a lead because I don't expect to be doing a sales call with them. Then months later the person is promoted and is now in a position to purchase something from me (or any other valid reason). At the time when I imported the persons contact information they were not a traget, nor a lead, just a contact. Now the contact is a lead or has become an account.

We can create the account manually of course and associate the contact with the account but we have to hand enter all the key data into the account fields when the bulk of them could be used. The point is that it is tedious and is a small example why sugarcrm is hard to roll out to company and get it accepted.

Relationships are not static.

cheers

[lurkerfilms]

Repeat after me... Relationships are not static. Relationships are not static. Relationships are not static. Relationships are not static. Relationships are not static.

Thank you