What are Accounts?

An Account, in CRM terminology, is a company you do (or are about to do) business with. The company may be your client, vendor, or a business prospect, but in any case you need to maintain their list – The Account field in CRM helps you manage that. An Account has generally one or more Contacts (more on contacts here).

How to Create an Account

Accounts are the center of a CRM since your customers (and prospective customers) will be listed here. Let’s have a look at how to create Accounts in CRM.me.

1. As you log into your CRM.me instance, you find the Accounts button on the left hand menu bar. Click on the “Accounts” button as indicated below.
   
   
2. This takes you to the accounts page where you find a list of all the Accounts already present in the system. If you don’t have any Accounts, let’s add one right away! Click on the “Create” button on the top.
   
   
3. This takes you to the Account creation page. The other way to do this (from anywhere in CRM.me) is to click on the “Create” button on the top right corner of any CRM.me page.
   
4. Now as you are on the Account creation page, just fill all the details (Note that only the name is mandatory to create an Account, but the more details you fill in, the better for later use). Then save to finish the process.

Handling Accounts

The Account page has a list of all the companies you have saved in your CRM.me application. Let’s see what details/options/features are available to manage your Accounts.

Default Features: Default page after you click an Account has several portlets added which let you handle different aspects. Here is a list of portlets:

• Basic Information: This shows you the basic contact details (address, phone number, et al)
• Notes: Lets you add useful information about that Account. Click on “More Options” to add a file or link with other Accounts, Contacts, or Leads.
• Latest activities: Shows you a consolidated list of all that is going on with this Account.
• Opportunities: Lets you add or view Opportunities associated with this Account.
• Contacts: Shows the Contacts you have for this Account. You can create a Contact as well.
• Open Tasks: Here you can add/view all the Tasks related to this Account.
• Upcoming Meetings: This calendar lets you view a list of all the Meetings planned for this Account.

Custom Options: Now that you have seen the default options available, let’s see how you can add/remove portlets. This way you can cut the unnecessary info and just focus on what you want.

• Add Portlets: Click on the lock icon on the top right corner of the Account detail page.
• This unlocks the page and an option to add portlet appears on the page.
  
• Just click on the “Add Portlet” button to show a list of portlets available that can be added.
• Here is an account page with a "Product" portlet added.
• Remove Portlets: To remove portlets, just click on the gear icon on top right corner of each box containing a portlet. You get the option to remove the portlet here. You can add them later if you wish. You can even rearrange portlets by dragging & dropping them.