Account-Contact Relationship constraints

Question

What would be the best way to constrain my sales process such that It makes default Account Contact 1-1 relationship, and otherwise If I specify? With only the declarative tools.

I've been reading about the Personal Account, but I don't understand if It's also allows me to have Business Accounts at the same time.

Answer 1

Person Accounts are a "record type" of accounts. You can freely use both Person Accounts and Business Accounts as you like; each time a new Account is created, you can choose which you'd like to make. However, do make sure you read Considerations for Using Person Accounts before using them, however, as there are some limitations. Also, try them out in a Sandbox first to make sure they will serve your purposes.

Answer 2

If I understand your question, you want to restrict the standard Account (1) to Contact (Many) relationship to 1:1, using declarative tools.

Assuming that to be the case, you can do so. If not completely declarative, you can still achieve it with minimal customization. You can achieve it using one of the approaches as below:

1. Create a field on Account, which keeps count of Contacts associated to that Account
2. Create a Validation Rule on Contact which will be invoked whenever a new Contact is getting created. The Validation rule just verifies as if Contact count on associated Account > 1, restrict the creation

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Person Accounts are just another type of Accounts and you use that specifically in scenarios where your Business model is B2C. It can co-exist with Business Accounts when enabled.

Answer 3

If you want to have maximum one contact for each account. Below is the declarative approach -

1. Create text field on Contact record label 'Account Id' of unique type text with 18 length.

2. Create workflow rule on Contact, in criteria specify formulae to true.

3. Add wf field update as action. Update above Account Id field with value of parent AccountId field.

4. Save it and activate the workflow rules.