How do I create accounts in Salesforce?

Field mappings from Mailchimp to Salesforce include an option to create leads or contacts, based on Mailchimp data. When you create a contact, you can also create a Salesforce account. 

Setting the account record type:

See account record type FAQ

Naming the account:

In the create rule, you can customize the account name using text and fields mapped to the contact we create.

Account naming pattern examples: 

• • "Mailchimp Contacts" - the name pattern uses a constant. 
  • "[LastName] Household" - the name pattern uses the data mapped to the contact field Last Name (API name LastName). See the steps below.

Upserting an account from data collected in Mailchimp:

If you collect a company name in a Mailchimp merge field and would like to use that in the account name pattern, you have to map the company name to a contact field, like you do other contact fields.

Remember, we generate the account name from mapped contact fields. 

For example:

• • Collect company name in a merge field on your audience called Company
  • Create a contact field called MC Company
  • Map the Mailchimp field Company to contact field MC Company in the Mailchimp to Salesforce Mappings
  • In the Account naming pattern, use [MC_Company__c] (Salesforce API name)

Please see a sample in this screenshot. 

We will attempt to find an existing Account by matching on the name pattern. If an account is found, we will use that account for new contacts that have the same mapped name (i.e., MC Company).

If not, we'll create a new account with that name pattern.

Relating all new contacts under an existing account:

Use default values in the contact mapping to set the AccountId field to the same account for all newly created contacts. 

Updating existing contacts:

We won't update the account on an existing contact.

You also can't map an account name from Mailchimp to the Account field on new or existing contacts. That field is a lookup, not text. Instead, you can map it to a custom text field, and then process any updates with your own asynchronous automation.

Account names are global:

Customizing the naming pattern is applied globally across all audiences where you have the create account option enabled. Of course, this only applies if you have the create option enabled for more than one audience, and it is applied to newly created accounts going forward. 

NPSP users:

Most NPSP users shouldn't create an account, as the NPSP code will do it for them.