Troubleshoot Account records in Business Contact Manager

The link between the 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.) and the Account record (Account record: The location for storing Account information, including information that is entered on the Account form, linked records, and communication history items.) has been broken because the history item was moved to a new location or deleted. If you want to restore a moved link, you can locate the communication history item and relink it to the 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.).

• On the Business Contact Manager toolbar (Business Contact Manager toolbar: The toolbar at the top of an item where you can view existing links or create new links to Account, Business Contact, Opportunity, or Business Project records.), click Accounts.
• On the Business Contact Manager menu, click Accounts.

In Business Contact Manager for Outlook, an Account record is a company (company: A commercial organization or a small business.) or organization with which you do business. An Account is considered an independent record and cannot be linked to another Account.

You can link dependent records, such as Business Contacts (Business Contact: A person with whom you do business at a company or organization.) and Opportunities (Opportunity: The chance to sell your products or services to an Account or Business Contact.), Business Projects (Business Project: A project that is created in Business Contact Manager for Outlook. A Business Project is made up of one or several project tasks.) and Project Tasks (task: A personal or work-related project, assignment, or errand to track through completion.), and communication history items (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 an Account record.

If you do business with an Account that has multiple offices, you can link Business Contacts from each office to one Account record, or create a separate Account record for each office, giving each office an identifier to distinguish the Accounts.

1. When you save an Account record with the same name or an e-mail address as one that already exists in your Accounts folder, Business Contact Manager for Outlook displays a A duplicate item has been detected dialog box with some options.
2. Select the option appropriate for your purpose:
• Add this as a new Account anyway

Select this option to add the new Account record to your Accounts folder with the same name as the existing Account record. You can add an identifier to the name of one of the Accounts to distinguish it from the other, after this new Account is added into the Accounts database.

• Update and open the existing Account with new information from this one

If you choose to update an existing record, Business Contact Manager for Outlook compares all fields and replaces conflicting data with the data from the new Account record.

• Open Existing Account

If you choose to make a manual comparison of the data between the two Accounts, make changes to one and delete the other, or add an identifier to the name of one of the Accounts to distinguish it from the other, and then save both Accounts.

 Note   For more information about resolving duplicate records, see Resolve duplicate Account or Business Contact records in Business Contact Manager.

If an Account has multiple office locations, you can create a separate Account for each location. If you choose to add a new record, a new Account record will be added to your Accounts folder with the same name as the existing Account record. To distinguish between the two, add an identifier to the Account Name in one of the records.

Because a Business Contact can be linked to only one Account, the list shows only the Business Contacts that are not yet linked to an Account. If all the Business Contacts are linked to corresponding Accounts, the list is empty because there are no available, unlinked Business Contacts to show.