--- schema_version: "1" id: 21157ef7ae7fdfcd1345e3cba9522b413a317133e464af72a8d7ce3287347219 title: Contacts to Multiple Accounts collection: admin version: current locale: en-us portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/sales/264-0-0/shared_contacts_overview.md canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.shared_contacts_overview.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 source_site: help.salesforce.com content_type: documentation content_hash: 31bb853f91afea35b10f37d94629de1784cc0baeeaaa99c1249a50025a6bf9c5 description: People often work with more than one company. A business owner might own more than one company or a consultant might work on behalf of multiple organizations. Relate a single contact to multiple accounts so you can easily track the relationships between people and businesses without creating duplicate records. products: - Sales Cloud release: "264" --- # Contacts to Multiple Accounts People often work with more than one company. A business owner might own more than one company or a consultant might work on behalf of multiple organizations. Relate a single contact to multiple accounts so you can easily track the relationships between people and businesses without creating duplicate records. ### Required Editions
Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience
Available in: Contact Manager, Group, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions
When you use Contacts to Multiple Accounts, each contact still requires a primary account (the account in the Account Name field). The contact and its primary account have a _direct_ relationship. But you can add other accounts to the contact. These secondary account-contact relationships are _indirect_. Contacts to Multiple Accounts works with person accounts. That means a person account can be either a related contact on a business account or a related account on a contact. A person account can also be related to another person account as either a related contact or related account. When you relate a person account to an account or contact, the relationship is always indirect. That’s because person accounts don’t have primary accounts, so person accounts can’t be directly related to business accounts. And person accounts can't be primary accounts for contacts, so person accounts can't be directly related to contacts. When Contacts to Multiple Accounts is enabled, an Account Contact Relationship record is created for each contact with a primary account, and for each person account. Contacts to Multiple Accounts can't be enabled with the Metadata API. ![Contact to multiple accounts](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-sales-sales_core-264-0-0-production-enus/3c339c40-ca6c-49ba-9c6e-684be7a55f80/sales_core/images/contacts/contact_to_multiple_accounts.png) ![Tip](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-sales-sales_core-264-0-0-production-enus/3c339c40-ca6c-49ba-9c6e-684be7a55f80/images/icon_tip.png) Tip We recommend turning on this feature outside of regular business hours to ease setup if your org has a large number of contacts. ![Example](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-sales-sales_core-264-0-0-production-enus/3c339c40-ca6c-49ba-9c6e-684be7a55f80/images/icon_example.png) Example John Smith is president of Acme Corporations, and Acme is the account on his contact record. But John is also involved with the nonprofit media organization Greendot Media. By adding Greendot Media as a related account on John’s contact record, you can track this other relationship. John is considered a _direct_ contact to Acme because Acme is the account on his contact record. And he’s considered an _indirect_ contact to Greendot Media and any other accounts that he becomes related to. John also appears on the Related Contacts related list for Greendot Media and any other accounts that he’s indirectly related to. #### See Also - [Set Up Contacts to Multiple Accounts](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.shared_contacts_set_up.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Let your sales reps easily track the relationships between the customers and businesses they work with. Contacts to Multiple Accounts is quick to set up and allows reps to relate a single contact record to multiple accounts.") - [Create and Edit Relationships Between Contacts and Accounts](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.shared_contacts_create_and_edit.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "To easily track the relationships between people and the businesses they work with, relate a single contact record to multiple account records.") - [Considerations for Relating a Contact to Multiple Accounts](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.shared_contacts_considerations.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Get familiar with tips, tricks, and potential pitfalls before you relate a contact to more than one account.")