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Create contacts

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When you develop a business relationship with someone in another company, add them as a contact in Business Central. Then, add any information about them, or their company, that could be useful in future communications. You can create the following types of contacts on the Contact Card page:

  • Person – Use this when you've had direct contact with someone and have their contact details.
  • Company – Use this for a contact that is not an individual person but rather an entity such as a contractor or a bank.

The information that's relevant for each type of contact differs, so the available fields and actions are different. For example, you can only assign job responsibilities to a person, and an industry group to a company.

You can change the value of the Type field later. Alternatively, use the fields on the Inheritance FastTab on the Marketing Setup page to specify the data to share between a person and their company. Learn more at Setting Up Contacts.

When you convert a contact to a customer, vendor, or employee, for example, the contact person or contact company becomes the name of the customer. The record for the contact is kept, and you can link the contact and the customer so their data synchronizes going forward.

To create a contact manually

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter Contacts, then choose the related link.

  2. Choose the New action.

  3. In the No. field, enter a number for the contact.

    Alternatively, if you have a number series for contacts on the Marketing Setup page, you can select Enter to insert the next available contact number.

  4. Fill in the remaining fields as required. Hover over a field to read a short description.

To create a contact from a customer, vendor, or bank account

If you have existing customers, vendors, and bank accounts you want to create contact cards for, you can use the Create Contacts from batch jobs. When you create a contact this way, the contact information is later synchronized with the related customer, vendor, or bank account information. Learn more at Synchronizing Contacts with Customers, Vendors, Employees, and Bank Accounts.

Note

Before you can create contacts based on existing data, you must specify a business relation code for customers, vendors, or bank accounts on the Interactions FastTab on the Marketing Setup page. Learn more at Set up Contacts.

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter one of the following that matches the entity you want to create contacts from, then choose the related link.
    • Create Contacts from Customers
    • Create Contacts from Vendors
    • Create Contacts from Bank Accounts
  2. On the request page that opens, in the Customer, Vendor, or Bank Account section, set filters if you want to create contacts from specific customers, vendors, or bank accounts.
  3. Choose OK to start creating contacts.

The next contact numbers in the number series are assigned to the new contacts. The business relation code specified on the Marketing Setup page is assigned to the newly created contacts.

Tip

You can also do this the other way around, namely by creating a customer, vendor, employee, or bank account from a contact. Learn more in the To create a customer, vendor, employee, or bank account from a contact section.

To create a customer, vendor, employee, or bank account from a contact

If you have a customer, vendor, employee, or bank account for the company you want to create a contact for, use the Create as action. When you create a contact this way, the contact information is later synchronized with the related customer, vendor, employee, or bank account information. Learn more at Synchronizing Contacts with Customers, Vendors, and Bank Accounts.

Note

Before you can create customers, vendors, employees, or bank accounts from contacts, you must specify a business relation code on the Marketing Setup page on the Interactions FastTab. Learn more at Setting up Contacts.

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter Contacts, then choose the related link.
  2. Select the contact you want to create as a customer, vendor, employee, or bank account.
  3. Choose the Create as action, then choose either Customer, Vendor, Bank, or Employee.
  4. Choose OK.

The contact information is transferred from the contact card to a new customer, vendor, employee, or bank account card. You may want to add specific information to each of the cards, such as invoicing and payment details. For an example, see Register New Customers.

If you have a contact and either a customer, vendor, employee, or bank account for the same company, you can link the two entities to synchronize data.

  1. Open the contact you want to link.
  2. Choose the Link with existing action, then choose the Customer, Vendor, Bank, or Employee action.
  3. On the page that opens, select the customer, vendor, employee, or bank account to link to.
  4. In the Current Master Fields field, specify the fields to prioritize if there is conflicting information in fields common to both the existing contact and the customer, vendor, employee, or bank account. So, if the salesperson code differs between the contact and customer, you can choose to keep the one on the contact card by selecting Contact.
  5. Choose OK.

If you linked a contact with a customer, vendor, employee, or bank account that you didn't intend to, remove the link between the entities so the data no longer synchronizes.

  1. Open the contact that has the wrong link.
  2. Choose the Business Relations action.
  3. On the page that opens, select the customer, vendor, employee, or bank account to remove the link from.
  4. Choose the Delete action.

Note

Do not use the Business Relations window to change existing relations. Instead, remove the relation and use the Link with existing action. Learn more in the To link a contact to an existing customer, vendor, employee, or bank account section.

Synchronizing contacts with customers, vendors, employees, and bank accounts

If some of your contacts are also customers, vendors, employees, or bank accounts, you can synchronize them with data from the contact and gain the following benefits:

  • You only have to update information in one place. So, if you modify the phone number on the contact, the phone number for the customer, vendor, employee, or bank account is automatically updated.
  • If you have specified a number series for contacts, when you create a customer, vendor, employee, or bank account card, a contact is automatically created.
  • You can create sales quotes and orders, and purchase quotes and orders, from the contact.
  • You can record your interactions, such as printing orders, blanket orders, creating sales service orders, sending e-mails, and so on.
  • If you delete a contact linked to a customer, vendor, employee, or bank account, only the contact is removed. The customer, vendor, employee, or bank account remains.
  • Likewise, if you delete a customer, vendor, employee, or bank account that is linked to a contact, the contact remains.

Note

Certain details, such as invoicing and posting details, are not available for contacts. When you create contacts as customers, vendors, employees, or bank accounts, you may want to add that information manually.

There are three ways to enable data synchronization between contacts and customers, vendors, employees, or bank accounts:

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter Contacts, and then choose the related link.
  2. Select the line for a contact, choose the Related Information action, and then choose the Customer/Vendor/Bank Account/Employee action.

See also

Managing Contacts
Setting Up Contacts
Use Online Maps to Find Locations and Directions
Work with Business Central

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