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.

Customize the names of tabs and field labels

1. Rename the Accounts tab and the business account and person account fields to reflect your business use.
2. Rename the Contacts tab and the business contact field to reflect your business use. If your organization uses person accounts only, change the visibility setting for the Contacts tab to "Default Off" or "Hidden" to reduce user confusion.
3. Rename the Partners related list to “Related Accounts,” “Relationships,” or a similar phrase or term that reflects how your person accounts relate to one another.
4. Remove the account site field from the page layout for person accounts. Alternately, if your organization uses person accounts only, repurpose it as a unique identifier for person accounts. For example, you could rename the field "Client Number" and use it to store a number that uniquely identifies each person. By default, this field displays in many list views and other areas and can help differentiate between people with similar names.

Customize person account page layouts

1. From Setup, enter Person Accounts in the Quick Find box, then select Page Layouts.
2. Add contact fields and related lists to the page layout as needed.

Customize person account record types

When person accounts are enabled, a default person account record type is automatically created. You can modify this default person account record type, and you can also add more person account record types.

Add the Is Person Account field to rules

Add the Is Person Account field to rules such as:

• Workflow rules
• Assignment rules
• Escalation rules
• Field validation rules

Note When configuring lead assignment rules, create separate email notification templates for business accounts and person accounts. That way you can show only the fields that are supported for each type of account. For example, a person account email notification template does not need the Company field.

Add the person account icon to search results and lookup dialogs

The person account icon corresponds to the Is Person Account field. The icon visually distinguishes person accounts from business accounts in account lists and from business contacts in contact lists. If your organization works exclusively with person accounts, adding the icon is not necessary.

Add the person account icon and other person account fields as columns in public list views

You can also configure the search criteria of public list views so that person accounts are included or excluded as appropriate.

Individual users must update their personal list views.

Customize public reports and customize public dashboards to include person account information

Individual users must update their personal reports and dashboards as well.

Customize partner roles for person accounts

Examples of customized partner roles include “Spouse,” “Neighbor,” “Attorney,” and “Accountant.”

Customize leads

Create lead record types for person accounts

Create lead page layouts for business accounts and person accounts. Page layouts for leads that convert to business accounts must contain the Company field. Page layouts for leads that convert to person accounts must not contain the Company field.

Note Leads that don't have a value in the Company field are converted to person accounts. Leads that do have a value in the Company field are converted to business account.

Update integrations

For more information on the API, visit Salesforce Developers.