Contacts to Multiple Accounts
Key Takeaway
Each contact has one direct relationship, to its primary account, and can also have indirect relationships to other accounts. To report on indirect relationships, use a custom report type that includes the Account Contact Relationship object, such as Contacts with Account Relationships.
Contacts to Multiple Accounts lets you relate one contact record to more than one account. You can track a person who works with several companies without creating duplicate contacts. Each contact keeps one primary account. Its other account links are indirect relationships, each stored as a separate record. Because of that, the feature affects page layouts, record access, and reporting.
Direct and indirect relationships
People often work with more than one company. A business owner might own several companies, or a consultant might work for several organizations. Contacts to Multiple Accounts lets you relate that one contact to each account, so you avoid duplicate contact records.
The link to the primary account is a direct relationship. Every other account you add is an indirect relationship.
Priya Patel's Account Name is Northwind Traders, so she is a direct contact of Northwind Traders. She also advises Blue Harbor Logistics, so a sales rep adds Blue Harbor Logistics as a related account. Priya becomes an indirect contact of Blue Harbor Logistics and appears on its "Related Contacts" related list. Salesforce still holds only one contact record for Priya.
A contact must have a primary account before it can have indirect relationships, so a private contact (a contact with no primary account) can't have them. Relationships with person accounts are always indirect, because person accounts have no primary account and can't be a contact's primary account.