By default, Salesforce accounts are business accounts. Business accounts store
information about companies or other entities. Person accounts extend the standard
business-to-business account functionality by allowing you to store information about individual
consumers. Person accounts combine certain account fields and contact fields into one record.
You can use both business accounts and person accounts in the same org.
Required Editions
Business accounts available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning
Experience
Business accounts available in: All Editions
Person accounts available in: Both Salesforce Classic and Lightning
Experience
Person accounts available in Professional, Enterprise,
Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions
Note In Salesforce Help and other documentation, the word account by itself always refers to both business accounts and person accounts. We use the terms business accounts and person accounts when there are differences between the two types of accounts.
Enable Person Accounts Person accounts store information about individual people by combining certain account and contact fields into one record.
Optimize Person Accounts with These Recommended Configurations Person accounts are ready to go when they're enabled, but a few tweaks make them work better for your organization. The procedures listed here are optional, and can be performed in any order at any time.
Test Your Person Account Setup After you enable and configure person accounts, we recommend testing your setup to ensure that it's optimized for your organization. You can use this list as a starting point. If you made other custom configurations, don't forget to add tests for them to the list.
Business Contact Sharing for Orgs That Use Person Accounts Orgs that use person accounts can modify the Organization-Wide Sharing Default for Contacts. Modifying the Organizing Sharing Default provides flexibility in how you share business contacts, including the ability to define contact sharing rules and manually share business contacts.
Considerations for Using Merge Fields for Person Accounts A merge field is a field you can put in an email, an email template, a mail merge template, a custom link, or a formula to incorporate values from a record. You can use merge fields in the subject and body of custom HTML templates. When using merge fields, it’s a good idea to understand how they work and what to expect in your merged documents and emails.
Considerations for Using Merge Fields in Validation Rules for Person Accounts A merge field incorporates values from a record. You can add merge fields to an email template, mail merge template, custom link, or formula. If your person account validation rules include merge fields, here are some things to keep in mind.
We use three kinds of cookies on our websites: required, functional, and advertising. You can choose whether functional and advertising cookies apply. Click on the different cookie categories to find out more about each category and to change the default settings.
Privacy Statement
Required Cookies
Always Active
Required cookies are necessary for basic website functionality. Some examples include: session cookies needed to transmit the website, authentication cookies, and security cookies.
Functional Cookies
Functional cookies enhance functions, performance, and services on the website. Some examples include: cookies used to analyze site traffic, cookies used for market research, and cookies used to display advertising that is not directed to a particular individual.
Advertising Cookies
Advertising cookies track activity across websites in order to understand a viewer’s interests, and direct them specific marketing. Some examples include: cookies used for remarketing, or interest-based advertising.