Person or Company – How to Structure Contacts Correctly

The Structure

Company – Name, Address, Tax Number, Industry, Size

Person – Name, Email, Phone, Position

Relationship – Person X works at Company Y, in this role, since when

The third point is most often forgotten and is the most important. It allows history: If someone changes companies, the relationship remains and a new one is added. You can still see that you have already worked with this person – this is valuable for business.

What Happens Without This Structure

• A contact changes, the data record is overwritten, the history is lost
• Three people from the same company create three company addresses that diverge
• Analyses by company size are incorrect because each person is counted as a separate customer

Conglomerates and Locations

For larger customers, you need an additional level: Conglomerate over company over location. Important for framework contracts and conglomerate revenues. This structure should be planned even if it is not filled at the beginning – retrieving it later is significantly more effort.

For Private Customers

There, the person is sufficient. Forcing a company level leads to empty data records. If you serve both, the system must be able to handle both cases without requiring one side to fill in mandatory fields that do not exist.