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An Account (Account: A business or organization with which you do business. If a service is being provided, such as dental or medical, an Account can also be a customer.) is a business or an organization with whom you do business. Use Account records (Account record: The location for storing Account information, including information that is entered on the Account form, linked records, and communication history items.) to centralize information about your business Accounts. You can also link one or more Business Contact (Business Contact: A person with whom you do business at a company or organization.), Opportunity (Opportunity: The chance to sell your products or services to an Account or Business Contact.), or communication history item (communication history item: An item such as an appointment, business note, e-mail message, file, or task that is linked to an Account, Business Contact, Opportunity, or Business Project.) to your Account records to have a more complete picture of the activities (activity: An action to be performed, such as a task, or a communication item that is sent or received, for example, e-mail, phone calls, and appointments.) of your Accounts.

When Business Contact Manager for Outlook is integrated with your accounting system (accounting system: The accounting program.), you can add your accounting system's customers as Accounts, which adds some general information, such as address and phone number, to the Account record. This also creates a link between the customer (customer: A person or company to whom your company sells products or services.) record and the Account record, and means you can view financial information about the Account. You can also choose to include the contacts that are linked with these customers. The customer records will be imported into Business Contact Manager for Outlook as Accounts, and the contacts linked with these customers will be imported as Business Contacts.

Open an Account record

 Tip   On the Ribbon, click E-mail Auto-link to ensure that e-mail messages to and from this Account are saved in the communication history for this record.

 Tip   For information about how to create a distribution list from your Business Contacts or Accounts, see Create and work with a distribution list. In the Select Members dialog box, under Address Book, click Business Contacts or Accounts.