---
schema_version: "1"
id: 2a60b0dbbaac9c0459e11b1c4eeaed6d72516fc163e75798a113d3a84b069f1e
title: Best Practices for Account Relationships
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/platform/264-0-0/networks_account_relationships_best_practices.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.networks_account_relationships_best_practices.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: 22242ece06ccbd78a74408b5d86314c9ed7828cb5a808099a373ca33be1a14f0
description: Looking for best practices and use cases to help you get the most out of your account relationships and account relationship sharing rules? You’ve come to the right place.
products:
  - Security
  - Salesforce Platform
release: "264"
---
# Best Practices for Account Relationships

Looking for best practices and use cases to help you get the most out of your account relationships and account relationship sharing rules? You’ve come to the right place.

### Required Editions

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small edition"><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience</td></tr><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: <strong>Enterprise</strong>, <strong>Performance</strong>, <strong>Unlimited</strong>, and <strong>Developer</strong> Editions</td></tr></tbody></table>

Account relationships only share data with Partner or Customer Community Plus users. Keep the following in mind when you use account relationships to share data:

- If possible, load your data before you set up account relationship data sharing rules. Loading data after you create account relationships and account relationship data sharing rules activates the sharing rules. Performance can be affected if large quantities of data is loaded after the rules are created. If it’s necessary to load data after account relationship data sharing rules have been created, load no more than 1 million records per day.
- Create the account relationship before creating account relationship data sharing rules.
- Avoid bulk Contact reparenting operations.
- Limit updates to account relationship data sharing rules that are being used by multiple account relationships. Recalculating account relationship data sharing rules for many records can take some time. If updates to active account relationship data sharing rules are necessary, space them out to avoid performance issues. Also shared data may not be immediately available after you make the updates.
- For optimal data processing, position users who own many records at the top of an external role hierarchy.
- Before you put your account relationship data sharing rules into production, test them in a Sandbox.

When you create account relationships, keep the following Salesforce limitation in mind:

- Salesforce has a recommended limit of 50 million records for custom objects.

![Tip](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-platform-access-264-0-0-production-enus/a92be132-3cbc-412a-9262-130636120c14/images/icon_tip.png)

Tip If you’re loading more than 10 million records, contact your account executive before loading. We can help monitor your progress and assist you.