Sub-Accounts?

[JenniferMJoy]

What is the best way to create sub-accounts?

The 'sub-accounts' that I want to create already exist in my SF org, so everything related to those accounts needs to remain in the org.

What are my options? New Custom Object that looks almost identical to accounts? Just a look-up field? Any other suggestions?

[Stevemo]

Could you provide a little more info on exactly what these Sub-Accounts are?  Are they subsidiaries/divisions/regional offices of a larger corporation? 

[JenniferMJoy]

Steve,

Yes, exactly that- subsidiaries/divisions/regional offices of a larger corporation.

When I search for something like "ABC", I want only the Main company to show (not "ABC Division" "ABC NA" "ABC EMEA" "ABC Asia" etc). But if I were to click into "ABC" either a related list or look up fields would then take me to all these divisions or subsidiaries.

Help??

[Stevemo]

Okay, if you've already created account records for all of these subsidiaries on your SFDC you might want to look into installing Inline Account Hierarchy on your SFDC Org.  It's a free app that was developed by Salesforce Labs>

http://sites.force.com/appexchange/listingDetail?listingId=a0N300000016chCEAQ

There's really no way to restrict the results that show up when you do a basic search in SFDC, you can only filter the results afterwards.  With that being said, you could add a custom field like a checkbox that identifies an Account as being the Corporate Headquarters, or "Master Account" or something like that.  Then you could build custom Views, Consoles, that only show these Master Accounts.  

Building a custom object for these subsidiaries is an option, but there's gonna be a lot of work involved if you want to export all of the subsidiary accounts and then re-load them as your new custom objects.  

I've built a few things kinda like that for my SFDC Org, and they do work, I just want you to know what you're getting yourself into before you go down that road.