The best way to enter a new account in Salesforce is to use the Create New drop-down list located on the sidebar of the home page. From the Edit Account page, you get a clear picture of the account fields that are most important to your company. To create accounts by using the Create New drop-down list, follow these simple steps, starting with searching for whether this account already exists.
Before adding an account (or any other record, for that matter), always search for it first. You might not be the only person to have worked with a particular company. By searching first, you avoid creating duplicate entries, you can potentially profit from prior history on an existing account, and you don’t waste time chasing accounts that don’t belong to you.
Follow these steps to add a new account:
Enter the name of the account that you want to create in the Global Search field at the top of any page, and then click the Search button.
A Search Results page appears with a list of records that match your query. If you see records that match particular account or lead records, don’t throw in the towel yet. Click links listed in the Name columns to drill into the details and see whether the account is being worked.
If you don’t get any results, select Account from the Create New drop-down list on the sidebar.
The Edit mode of a new account appears, as shown in this figure.
Fill in the fields as much as you can or as required.
At a minimum, you must complete the Account Name field. Try to provide as much detail as possible to make this new account record valuable for your selling objectives. You can make this data as simple as basic phone and address information, or as detailed as account segmentation data, such as type, industry, annual revenue, and so on.
When creating account records, strive for accurate and consistent spelling of the corporate name. Your customer database is only as good as the data being entered into the system. As a best practice, look up and use the name of the company from a reliable source (for example, Dun & Bradstreet, Hoover’s, or the company name as displayed on its corporate website).
For suggested naming conventions, go to the salesforce.com Community website () and search for “naming convention” to see more ideas and documents from customers.
When you’re done, click one of the following buttons:
Save: After you click the Save button, the Account detail page appears. On this page, you can click the Edit button whenever you need to modify information on the record.
Save & New: Clicking this button saves the current account record and automatically opens a new, blank account record in Edit mode.
A link to the first account appears in your Recent Items list in the left sidebar.
If you have an existing spreadsheet of companies that you want to import into Salesforce, you can use an import wizard tool and avoid the manual entry.