Adding and Managing Contacts and Companies

Contacts and companies are the foundation of StretchCRM — the who that every deal, ticket, activity, and task hangs off of. This article covers everything you can do with them.

Contacts vs. companies

• A contact is a person: an email, a name, a job title, a phone number, and the relationship metadata that goes with them.
• A company is an account: an organization with a domain, an industry, a size, and revenue.

A contact usually belongs to a company, but doesn't have to. One company can have many contacts.

Contact fields

When you create or edit a contact, you can set:

• Email (required, unique) — the contact's identity. Stored in lowercase.
• First name / last name / display name — display name auto‑fills from first + last if you leave it blank.
• Company — the account this person belongs to.
• Job title and phone.
• Lifecycle stage — Lead, Opportunity, Customer, etc.
• Lead status — the state of your outreach (e.g. new, connected).
• Lead score — a 0–100 number expressing promise.
• Consent status — subscribed, unsubscribed, or unknown.
• Owner — the responsible teammate.
• Status — active by default.

Company fields

When you create or edit a company, you can set:

• Name (required).
• Domain — the company's website domain.
• Industry.
• Lifecycle stage.
• Owner.
• Lead score.
• Employee count.
• Annual revenue — type a plain number; it's stored precisely.
• Status — active by default.

Creating a contact

1. Open Contacts and choose New.
2. Enter the email (required).
3. Add the first and last name, job title, and phone.
4. In Company, pick the account they belong to (create the company first if it doesn't exist yet).
5. Set lifecycle stage, lead status, consent status, and owner.
6. Optionally set a lead score.
7. Save. The contact appears in your list, sorted by lead score and recency.

Creating a company

1. Open Companies and choose New.
2. Enter the name (required).
3. Add the domain, industry, employee count, and annual revenue.
4. Set lifecycle stage and owner.
5. Save.

Editing and deleting

• Edit any field at any time from the record's detail view. Changes save immediately and update the record's "last updated" time.
• Delete removes the record permanently. Because contacts and deals reference companies, delete a company only when you're sure — deals and contacts attached to it will lose that link.

Linking people to accounts

The association between a contact and a company is what powers account‑level views. To link them, set the Company field on the contact. Once linked:

• The company's timeline includes the contact's activities.
• Deals and tickets attached to the contact can roll up to the account.
• Reporting can slice by company.

A worked example

You're adding Northstar Studio and its founder:

1. Create the company Northstar Studio — domain northstar.example, industry Creative Services, 18 employees, annual revenue $420,000, lifecycle stage Opportunity.
2. Create the contact Ava North — ava@northstar.example, Founder, lifecycle Opportunity, lead status connected, consent subscribed, lead score 82.
3. In Ava's Company field, select Northstar Studio.

Now any deal you attach to Ava also belongs to Northstar, and both records share a single, complete timeline.

Tips

• Search by email. Since email is unique, it's the fastest way to find or confirm a contact.
• Set display name for edge cases. For mononym contacts or shared inboxes, type the display name directly.
• Keep lead score meaningful. Decide as a team what a 40 vs. an 80 means so the number stays comparable across reps.
• Fill annual revenue and employee count on companies you care about — they're valuable inputs for prioritization and future account‑health signals.

Troubleshooting

"Email is required." The contact email field can't be blank. Enter a valid address.

Duplicate email error. A contact with that email already exists in your org. Search for it and edit the existing record rather than creating a second one.

Company won't attach. Make sure the company exists in your organization first. Create it, then set it on the contact.

A deleted company left orphaned deals. Deleting a company doesn't delete its deals, but they lose the company link. Re‑attach them to the correct account, or restore your intended structure by recreating the company and relinking.