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Adriano RothschildAdriano Rothschild 

Contact with Multiple Accounts

Hi, I'm trying to add multiple accounts to one contact. Currently, I am unable to and this causes me to have to make multiple Contacts for the same person. The few things I've tried:

1. Adding a Custom Field & Relationship for Accounts. A Related List field shows up, but only allows me to add New Accounts, not Existing.

2. Enabled "Allow users to relate a contact to multiple accounts" under Account Settings. This creates a field under "Contact Detail" that allows me to add an Existing Acccount. However, when I open that Account, the Contact does not show up in the Related List section.

3. Spoke with a Salesforce Customer Service Rep and they said I may need Developer Assistance to achieve this, because it is a "one-to-many" (or something like that) relationship.

I'm new to Salesforce so any assistance would be greatly appreciated. I'd be happy to share screenshots or further explanation on any of the points above. Thank you! 
Best Answer chosen by Adriano Rothschild
Andrew GAndrew G
Hi Adriano

I've not done this specifically with Contacts and Accounts before, but what you are looking at is a "many-to-many" relationship.  That is, an Account can have many Contacts, and a Contact can belong to many Accounts.

What you would do is create a joining object with a lookup to both Accounts and Contacts.  You would then add that object as a related list on both the Account and Contact layouts.   

However, before I did that I would review this trailhead article to see if the out of the box config can do what you need.
https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/admin_intro_accounts_contacts/admin_intro_accounts_contacts_relationships

Regards
Andrew

All Answers

Andrew GAndrew G
Hi Adriano

I've not done this specifically with Contacts and Accounts before, but what you are looking at is a "many-to-many" relationship.  That is, an Account can have many Contacts, and a Contact can belong to many Accounts.

What you would do is create a joining object with a lookup to both Accounts and Contacts.  You would then add that object as a related list on both the Account and Contact layouts.   

However, before I did that I would review this trailhead article to see if the out of the box config can do what you need.
https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/admin_intro_accounts_contacts/admin_intro_accounts_contacts_relationships

Regards
Andrew
This was selected as the best answer
Abdul KhatriAbdul Khatri
Hi Adriano,

Once you Enabled "Allow users to relate a contact to multiple accounts", you should see a Related Account List on the Contact Layout and Related Contact List on the Account Layout as shown below. Aren't you see that?

User-added image

User-added image
Abdul KhatriAbdul Khatri
Hi Adriano,

Was my explanation make sense and helped you anyway?
Adriano RothschildAdriano Rothschild
Andrew, that trailhead article solved my issue!

Abdul, the Related Accounts List showed up after following the steps in the article Andrew linked me.

Thank you both so much for your input, I really appreciate it.
Adriano RothschildAdriano Rothschild
Do either of you know how to go about creating Custom Reports that show these relationships?
Abdul KhatriAbdul Khatri
Hi Adiano, 

No issues, I am glad you got your answer that matters. Thanks Andrew for the help.