---
title: Organizing contacts into accounts
related:
  - https://docs.kentico.com/k82/on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/working-with-contacts/merging-contacts-and-accounts.md
  - https://docs.kentico.com/k82/on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/allowing-global-contact-management-objects.md
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

> **Info:** **Kentico EMS required**
>
> Features described on this page require the **Kentico EMS** license.

Accounts represent organizations, i.e. companies or other commercial or non-commercial bodies. You can use accounts to categorize your website's [contacts](https://docs.kentico.com/k82/on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/working-with-contacts.md) based on their affiliations. You can create accounts as subsidiaries of other accounts. Accounts can either be site-specific or shared across all websites in the system ([global accounts](https://docs.kentico.com/k82/on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/allowing-global-contact-management-objects.md)).

## Managing accounts

You can manage accounts on the **Accounts** tab of the **Contact management** application:

![Managing accounts](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k82/organizing-contacts-into-accounts/managing_accounts.png "Managing accounts")

Click **New account** to manually create new accounts.

When editing an account, you can fill in the following default fields on the **General** tab:

| Section | Fields                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
| ------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| General | **Account name**<br>**Account status** - allows you to select an [account status](#assigning-statuses-to-accounts).<br>**Subsidiary of** - you can set the account as a [subsidiary](#creating-subsidiaries) of a different account.<br>**Account owner** - you can select a user responsible for managing the account. |
| Address | **Address line 1**<br>**Address line 2**<br>**City**<br>**Zip code**<br>**Country**<br>**Phone**<br>**Fax**<br>**E-mail**<br>**Website URL**                                                                                                                                                                            |

> **Tip:** **Adding custom fields to accounts**
>
> If you need to store data for accounts in addition to the default fields, you can define custom fields:
>
> 1. Open the **Modules** application.
> 2. **Edit** () the **Contact management** module.
> 3. Open the **Classes** tab.
> 4. Edit the **Contact management - Account** class.
> 5. [Define the fields](https://docs.kentico.com/k82/custom-development/developing-form-controls/assigning-form-controls-to-fields.md) on the **Fields** tab.
>
> You can view and edit the values of your new fields on the **Custom fields** tab of the account editing interface.

You can leave **Notes** about the account. Click **Add stamp** to insert your stamp into the notes — the default stamp contains the full name of your user account and the current date and time.

## Creating subsidiaries

You can organize accounts into a hierarchical structure of subsidiaries. Each account can have any number of child accounts as subsidiaries.

> **Note:** **Note**: [Global accounts](https://docs.kentico.com/k82/on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/allowing-global-contact-management-objects.md) can only be subsidiaries of other global accounts.

To set an account as a subsidiary of a different account:

1. Open the **Contact management** application on the **Accounts** tab.
2. **Edit** () an account.
3. Select the parent account in the **Subsidiary of** field on the **General** tab.
4. Click **Save**.

You can view all subsidiaries of an account on the **Subsidiaries** tab of the account editing interface.

- Click **Add accounts** to set other accounts as subsidiaries of the edited account
- Click **View details** () to open the editing interface of individual subsidiary accounts
- You can **Remove** () subsidiaries (does not delete the account itself, only cancels the subsidiary relationship between the accounts)

![Viewing account subsidiaries](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k82/organizing-contacts-into-accounts/viewing_subsidiaries.png "Viewing account subsidiaries")

## Assigning statuses to accounts

You can label accounts with statuses to reflect their relationship with your organization or to indicate how you perceive them from a marketing point of view.

You can create, rename or delete the statuses in **Contact management -> Configuration -> Account status**.

To set a status for an account:

1. Open the **Contact management** application on the **Accounts** tab.
2. **Edit** () an account.
3. Select an **Account status** on the **General** tab.
   - Accounts can only have one status at a time.
4. Click **Save**.

The status appears in lists of accounts and you can use it when filtering.

## Adding contacts to accounts

To add contacts to an account:

> **Note:** **Note**: [Global accounts](https://docs.kentico.com/k82/on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/allowing-global-contact-management-objects.md) may only contain global contacts.

1. Open the **Contact management** application on the **Accounts** tab.
2. **Edit** () an account.
3. Open the **Contacts** tab.
4. Click **Add contacts**.
5. Select contacts.
6. (Optional) Choose an [account role](#assigning-account-roles-to-contacts) for the contacts.
7. Click **OK**.

The **Contacts** tab shows a list of all contacts in the account.

- Click **View contact details** () to open the editing interface of individual contacts.
- **Select contact role** ().
- You can **Remove** () contacts from the account.

You can also view and manage the accounts of individual contacts on the **Accounts** tab of the [contact editing interface](https://docs.kentico.com/k82/on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/working-with-contacts.md).

> **Tip:** **Tip**: You can create [marketing automation](https://docs.kentico.com/k82/on-line-marketing-features/marketing-automation.md) processes that [add or remove](https://docs.kentico.com/k82/on-line-marketing-features/marketing-automation/working-with-the-automation-process-designer/adding-marketing-actions-to-automation-processes.md) contacts to/from accounts.

> **Note:** **Primary and secondary contacts**
>
> You can designate a primary and secondary contact for each account. For example, you can use these contacts to identify the company's CEO or any other relevant employee.
>
> 1. Open the account's **General** tab.
> 2. Select a **Primary** and **Secondary contact** from the list of the account's contacts.
> 3. (Optional) Set the [account roles](#assigning-account-roles-to-contacts) of the primary and secondary contacts.
> 4. Click **Save**.

## Assigning account roles to contacts

You can specify roles for [contacts](https://docs.kentico.com/k82/on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/working-with-contacts.md) in accounts. Roles typically represent the job position or other type of competence that the contact has within the organization, such as _CEO_, _CFO_, _Decision maker_. Contacts can have only one role in each account.

To set roles for contacts within accounts:

1. Open the **Contact management** application on the **Accounts** tab.
2. **Edit** () the account.
3. Open the **Contacts** tab.
4. Click **Select contact role** for specific contacts.
5. Select the role.
6. Click **OK**.

You can add roles to multiple contacts using the options below the list:

1. Select the contacts:
   1. _All contacts_
   2. _Selected contacts_ - mark specific contacts using the checkboxes on the left side of the list.
2. Choose the _Select contact role_ action.
3. Click **OK**.
4. Select the target contact role.

The roles appear in the account's contact lists.

> **Tip:** **Tip**: You can also assign roles when editing specific contacts on the **Accounts** tab of the [contact editing interface](https://docs.kentico.com/k82/on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/working-with-contacts.md).

### Managing contact roles

Each website has a predefined set of contact roles that you can assign to contacts in accounts. You can create, rename or delete the roles in **Contact management -> Configuration -> Contact role**.

Click **New contact role** to create new roles.

![Managing contact roles](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k82/organizing-contacts-into-accounts/managing_contact_roles.png "Managing contact roles")