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Full Business Account entry
How-to guide

How to create a Business Account in Salesforce

Business Accounts are the standard, B2B-style Account record — companies, organizations, partners. They're what most CRM users mean when they say "Account." In orgs with Person Accounts enabled, Business Account is one of two record types; in orgs without, it's just "Account."

By Dipojjal Chakrabarti · Editor, Salesforce DictionaryLast updated Apr 20, 2026

Business Accounts are the standard, B2B-style Account record — companies, organizations, partners. They're what most CRM users mean when they say "Account." In orgs with Person Accounts enabled, Business Account is one of two record types; in orgs without, it's just "Account."

  1. Open the Accounts tab

    App Launcher → Accounts. New Business Account follows the standard Account creation flow.

  2. Click New

    If your org has Person Accounts enabled, you'll be prompted to pick a record type — choose Business Account.

  3. Enter Account Name

    The legal entity name of the company. The only platform-required field.

  4. Add Industry, Website, Phone

    Standard fields most orgs require via page layout even though the platform doesn't.

  5. Set Owner

    Defaults to the creating user; reassign if needed.

  6. Save

    Business Account is created. Add Contacts, Opportunities, etc. via related lists.

Mandatory fields
Namerequired

Required. The company / organization legal name. Person Accounts use LastName instead.

Gotchas
  • Business Account is just an Account record type — it's the same SObject as Person Account, distinguished by the IsPersonAccount field. Reports and queries should filter on IsPersonAccount = false to get only Business Accounts.
  • If Person Accounts is enabled, the New Account page shows a record-type picker. Without Person Accounts, the picker is skipped — confusing migrations between orgs.
  • Business Account names aren't unique by default. Most B2B orgs add a duplicate rule on (Name + BillingCity) to stop near-duplicates.

See the full Business Account entry

Business Account includes the definition, worked example, deep dive, related terms, and a quiz.