Working with Accounts

Table of Contents  [ Hide]

Navigate Accounts
Search Accounts
Create Custom List Views
Create Accounts
Import Accounts
Associate Account with Other Records
Export Accounts
Merge Duplicate Accounts
Change Account Owner
Print Account Details
Mass Transfer Accounts
Mass Update Accounts
Deduplicate Accounts
View Reports
Delete Accounts
Customize Accounts

In a typical Business to Business (B2B) scenario, Account represents a Company or a Department within the company, with which your company is planning to do business in future. An account stores the company address, number of employees, annual revenue, and other details.

You can associate an account with contacts (persons) within the company and the potentials (business opportunities) during pre-sales. After successful completion of the sales, you can also provide Customer Support & Service through Zoho CRM - Case Management. 

The table below provides information on the availability of Accounts module in various editions.

Navigate Accounts

Search Accounts

Create Custom List Views

(Access Privilege: Read/Write)

The Accounts Module consists of Standard and Custom views. By default, Zoho CRM provides a list of standard views that are ready to be used by all users in your organization. In addition, you can also create customized views and share with colleagues in your organization.

• Standard Views: You can modify the standard views and sort the order of the columns in the list. You can delete this view mode, provided you have been given the access to do so by the administrator.
• Custom Views: You can create new view modes, modify, delete custom views, and sort the order of the columns in the list.

By default, the following standard view modes are available in the Accounts module:

• Predefined Views
  • All Accounts
  • My Accounts
  • New This Week
  • New Last Week
  • Unread Accounts
    
• Recent Views
  • Recently Created Accounts
  • Recently Modified Accounts
  • Recently Viewed Accounts

Note: User created list views are displayed under User Created Views category in View drop-down list.

To learn more on creating list views, refer Managing List Views .

To create custom list views

1. Click the Accounts tab.
2. In the Accounts Home page, click the Create View link.
   
3. In the Create New View page, do the following:
   • In the View Information section, enter the custom View Name. 
   • In the Specify Criteria section, specify the filter criteria. 
   • In the Choose Columns section, select the columns to be displayed in the view mode. 
     
     
     
   • In the Accessibility Details section, define the user accessibility to view the custom lists.
4. Click Save.

Create Accounts

(Access Privilege: Read/Write)

In Zoho CRM, you can create accounts by:

• Entering data in the account details form
• Duplicating the account with a few changes from the existing account details
• Using Quick Create option, a quick create component present in left pane of the Accounts Home page
• Importing accounts from other Contact Management and CRM applications
• Synchronizing Microsoft Outlook contacts with Zoho CRM (Special case: An account will be created in Zoho CRM while Company Name field is specified in the Microsoft Outlook)
• Converting leads to accounts

Note: Some of the standard fields listed below may not be visible/editable depending on your organization's business process. In case you want to add/modify fields, please contact your System Administrator for more details on the usage of the other fields.

To know the List of Standard Account-related Fields, click here.

To create accounts individually

1. In the Accounts module, click New Account.
2. In the Create Account page, enter the account details.
3. Click Save. For more details, refer Associating Leads with Other Records.

To create accounts instantly

1. Click the Accounts tab.
2. On the left pane of the Home page, select Accounts from the Quick Create list.
3. Enter the relevant details.
4. Click Save.

To create duplicate accounts

1. In the Accounts tab, click a particular account that is to be duplicated.
2. In Account Details page, click Clone.
3. In the Clone Account page, modify the required account details
4. Click Save.

Import Accounts

Associate Account with Other Records

(Access Privilege: Read/Write)

You can create a 360 degrees view of the account to display all the associated details, such as contacts, potentials, trouble tickets, activities, attachments, and notes in a single view.

To associate account with other records

1. In the Account Details page, update the following details:
   • Potentials: To add potentials.
     
   • Contacts: To add contacts.
   • Open Activities: To add tasks and events (meetings, and calls).
   • Closed Activities: To display the closed activities.
   • Products: To add products.
   • Quotes: To add quotes.
   • Sales Orders: To add sales orders.
   • Invoices: To add invoices.
   • Attachments & Notes: To attach documents and notes.
   • Member Accounts: To add other divisions or subsidiaries to the parent account.
   • Cases: To create cases.

Export Accounts

Merge Duplicate Accounts

(Access Privilege: Find & Merge Duplicates)

Over a period, there may be a chance of accumulation of duplicate accounts. You can merge these duplicate accounts for a better organization of your accounts.

To merge duplicate accounts

1. Click the Accounts tab.
2. In the Accounts Home page, click the required account.
3. In the Account Details page, click Find & Merge Duplicates.
4. In the Find Duplicate Accounts page, do the following:
   
   a. In the Search Criteria section, by default, the some of the matching criteria are displayed.
   b. Add additional criteria if required, and then click Search.
   c. In the Matching Accounts section, select at least two accounts to be merged.
   d. Click Next.
5. In the Merge Accounts page, select the account that you want to maintain as the Master Record.
   
6. The double entries are highlighted. Select the data that are to be retained
7. Click Merge.

Change Account Owner

(Access Privilege: Change Owner )

When the prospecting is in progress, occasionally it may be useful to change the owner of some of the accounts in a single step. You can change the owner of an individual account or a group of accounts.

To change owner of accounts individually

1. Click the Accounts tab.
2. In the Accounts Home page, select the account record.
3. In the Account Details page, do one of the following:
   
   • Click the Change link next to the Account Owner details. In the pop up window, select the owner from the list, and then click OK.
   • Click Edit. In the Edit Accounts page, change the owner, and then click Save.

To change owner of accounts in bulk

1. Click the Accounts tab.
2. In the Account Home page, select the required check boxes.
3. Under More Actions, click Change Owner.
4. In the Change Account Owner page, click and then select the new user from the Change Owner pick list.
5. Click OK.

Print Account Details

(Access Privilege: Read)

You can view the account details in printable form and print them using browser’s print function.

To print account details

1. Click the Accounts tab.
2. In the Accounts Home page, click the required account that you want to print.
3. In the Accounts  Details page, click Print Preview. 
4. In the pop up window, click Print Page.

1. Click the Accounts tab.
2. In the Accounts Home page, click the Print View link.
   
   
   
3. In the Print Preview page, the system displays the list of account records.
4. Click Print Page.

Mass Transfer Accounts

Mass Update Accounts

Deduplicate Accounts

(Access Privilege: Deduplicate Accounts)

This feature enables you to find duplicate records in bulk and merge them as one record, if required. 

To merge duplicate accounts

1. Click the Accounts tab.
2. In the Accounts Home page, under Account Tools, click Deduplicate Accounts.
3. In the Deduplicate Accounts page, click an option by which you would like to search the duplicate records .(Website, for example)
   
4. Click Next.
5. From the list of matching records, select a record, and then click Next.
   
   a. In the Search Criteria section, enter additional criteria if required.
   b. Click Search.
   c. Click Match all the following or Match any of the following, as required.
   d. In the Matching Records section, select at least two accounts to be merged.
   e. Click Next.
6. In the Merge Accounts page, select the record that you want to maintain as the Master Record.
7. The double entries are highlighted. Select the data that is to be retained.
8. Click Merge.
   

• This feature is available only for the Enterprise edition Users with Administrator privilege.
• The account(s) merged to the master record will be deleted permanently and the action cannot be reverted.
• The attachments and activities will also be transferred to the master account record.

View Reports

(Access Privilege: Read/Write)

Zoho CRM reports are the detailed and informative list of records. Each report provides access to important data required for various purpose. You can directly access some of the standard reports pertaining to accounts from the Account Reports section.

The following reports are displayed under accounts module:

• Contact Mailing List
• Key Accounts
• Accounts by Industry

To view account reports

1. Click the Accounts tab.
2. In the Accounts Home page, click any of the reports' link under the Account Reports section.
   
   
   

   
   
3. In the Reports page, the system displays the Filter Options and the selected report details.
   
4. You can do the following:
   
   • Export: Use this option to export and save the report in Excel, PDF, or CSV format in your local disk. 
   • Save As: Use this option to save the report with a new name. This option is useful when you filter a specific set of data and save it for future reference. 
   • Customize: This feature is used to customize the report with regards to the report types, columns, grouping, filter criteria in the report, etc. For more details, refer Customize.
   • Reload: Use this option to update or refresh the contents of the screen.
   • Hide Details/Show Details: Click Hide Details to hide the details of the report and click Show Details to see the hidden details of the report.
   • Create Chart: This feature enables you to create charts, (such as Bar diagrams, Pie charts, Line charts, Funnel charts) based on the selected report details.
5. Do any of the following, and then click Apply Filter to filter records and view report based on the filter options specified:
   
   • Select Last Created Time or Last Modified Time from the Column list.
   • Select the option from the adjacent list. (Next FQ, for example). On selecting this option, the system will automatically display the Start and End date in the respective box.
   • Enter the Start Date and the End Date in MM/DD/YYYY format, or select the date from the calendar displayed.

For more details, refer Working with Reports

Delete Accounts

(Access Privilege: Read/Write/Delete)

Rarely, you may need to remove some of the unnecessary accounts (customers) from the Zoho CRM database to have a better control over the existing accounts.

Note: The deleted accounts are temporarily stored in Recycle Bin. If required you can restore the deleted accounts again. But if you delete accounts from Recycle Bin, you cannot restore again.

To delete accounts individually

1. Click the Accounts tab.
2. In the Accounts Home page, select the account.
3. In the Account Details page, click Delete.

Note: You can also point to the accounts record, and then click (Delete icon) to delete the account record.

Customize Accounts

(Access Privilege: Customize ZohoCRM)

Customization of the accounts module includes renaming the tab name, modifying the pick list values in standard fields, adding new custom fields, modifying accounts page layout, and show/hide the related list views according to your requirements.

For more details, refer Customizing Zoho CRM