Missing lead_source field in accounts

[websitedesigner]

Hi everyone I want to do something very simple. Ask my clients how they heard about me (which I use the lead_source field for) and when I convert the lead I want this information to come across to the account so I know how all of my clients heard about me. Unfortunately the lead_source field does not exist in the Accounts area - I can see it in the leads area and the contacts area but not the accounts area. I can add a field to the accounts area (although it seems weird that I have to) but when I do instead of it being called lead_source it calls itself lead_source_c and therefore the data from the leads don't come across to it because its not named the same name as the one used in the leads form.

I have also tried just creating a custom form in the leads area, contacts are and accounts area but I am also getting weird issues when I do this but I really feel like I shouldn't have to do this - it must be information that most people would want to retain when creating an account?

[robertbmirth]

The reason Accounts don't have a lead source is because an Account is designed to be an encapsulation of a group of people, i.e. a company or organization. That organization may have heard of you through many different sources - i.e. one employee found your website and another saw you at a conference; the rest heard through word of mouth. The idea is to keep contacts and accounts as what they are - you may even be speaking with individual clients who are not part of a business, but they (the person) are still just a contact for their account that they hold with you.

If you want to keep this framework in mind, what you can do is make 'lead_source' visible in the Contacts subpanel in the Accounts module, so you can visibly see how you met each client within the account module. Or, you could even populate your lead_source_c field that lists all the lead_sources via a logic hook whenever you retrieve an account.