This article goes into detail about the Companies and Contacts objects; how to create and maintain your client database; and how those records interact with the rest of the system. You can easily relate your companies and contacts to other records - like deals, properties, and tasks.
Creating a Company
A company can have one or many contacts. This is an example of a parent-child relationship (also know as a one-to-many relationship). This means you cannot have a contact (a child) without a company (a parent). Therefore, it is always good practice to create the company first.
For contacts who are not associated with a company (or the company is unknown), it is recommended that you create a blanket company to hold those contacts. To do this, create a new company called "No Company", then add the contacts to this company. You can always edit the contact record later to reflect the real company name.
Step 1. Go to the Companies tab and click New.
Step 2. Complete the fields, then click save.
By default, the only required field is Company Name. This is to easily allow records to be created on the fly (e.g. while on the phone).
If the company you are creating can be found online, your CRM will automatically fill in any known information for you.
Step 3. Create the contacts by going to the Contacts tab, then clicking New.
Step 4. When creating a contact, the first box will be Company Name, which is a required field. Look up the company you just created by typing in the first few letters, then selecting it from the list. Complete the rest of the fields and click Save to create a contact.
Page Layout
While the various page layouts are highly customizable and will be different for every brokerage, there are some basic components that will always be present.
Details will show all sections and fields for the record (Name, Phone, Address, etc...)
Related will show all other objects that this record is associated with.
Activity will show all upcoming and past calls, tasks, events, and emails.
Company <> Contact Relationship
Your CRM is a relational database, meaning data is relatable to other data within your database. For example, you can relate a Company or Contact to a Property they own or a Deal they are associated with.
As mentioned, a parent-child relationship exists between Companies and Contacts, meaning you can have one parent (one company) to many children (many contacts). There are also sibling relationships where records are related, but not in a hierarchal manner like the parent-child. Below is a list of some sibling relationships that exist between Companies-Contacts and other objects.
Companies-Contacts <> Properties: to define property owner company and contact persons; see Ownership section of property record.
Companies-Contacts <> Deal Pipeline: to define associated parties, both internal and external
Companies-Contacts <> Activities: allows you to associate a task, logged call, event, or email with a particular company or contact.
These relationships will be created naturally as you create records in the system - just make sure you fill out the associated fields. While this 'linking' of records is automatic, it is important to be aware of these relationships and know how they work to positively affect your business.