COMPANY: Understanding Companies
Learn what companies are, how they differ from contacts, and how to create and manage them in Unificus.
What is a Company?
Company vs. Contact: A Company represents a business entity you work with, while a Contact is an individual person. Though you can work with either, distinguishing between them is crucial for proper billing, accounting, and business operations. The Company should be formally linked to all relevant processes and billing activities.
Primary Contact Role: Every Company requires you to create or designate a Contact as the Primary Contact. This person acts as the Company’s representative within the platform, yet all transactional and financial information remains attached to the Company itself for billing purposes.
Where to Link Assets: When handling invoicing, document signing, or project assignment, associate these with the Company rather than the individual Contact. This practice ensures your business records and assets stay properly organized and connected to the correct legal entity. The Primary Contact can be changed at any time without affecting how records and assets are organized.
Multiple Company Profiles: A single Contact can serve as Primary Contact for multiple Companies. When they log in, they can switch between Company Profiles and operate independently within each—maintaining complete separation, privacy, and clarity throughout all interactions.
Smooth Transitions: If your Primary Contact changes due to staff movement, simply assign a new Contact to take their place. All Projects, Invoices, and other assets remain intact and properly linked to the Company.
Companies can be added as a Lead, Prospect, or Client.
For Prospect or Client status, you must add or designate a Primary Contact with an email address. Leads offer flexibility—you can add them without a Primary Contact, though this prevents them from accessing the Portal or receiving email notifications.
As a Lead, the Company cannot receive email notifications unless they’re assigned a Primary Contact with an email address. A Company created as a Lead without a Primary Contact will appear in the “Idle Companies” list.
When a Contact becomes the Primary Contact for a Company, the Profile Switcher feature activates in their account. This allows them to quickly move between Company profiles and their Individual profile. They can also set a “Preferred Profile,” ensuring they always land in that Profile when entering the Portal from a logged-out state.
Associated Contacts can be linked to or removed from Companies freely, but each Associated Contact can only be linked to one Company at a time.
How do I create a Company?
Go to CRM > Companies.
Click the +Add Company button and enter a Name for the new Company.
Next, select the Role. These Roles align with your Sales Funnel structure.
A Company can be added as a Lead, Prospect, or Client.
Lead: A Company you’ve recently met with minimal history. Use this to track them and schedule follow-ups. Leads don’t receive a Portal invitation and don’t require an email address.
Prospect: A Company that’s progressed further in your Sales Funnel. They can receive a Portal invitation, allowing you to share Files and Pages, and they can receive Estimates.
Client: The next level beyond Prospect. This role lets you assign Projects & Tasks, send Invoices & Documents, and more.
You may upload a logo for the Company, which functions the same as a Contact avatar.
Primary Contacts
If you’re creating a Prospect or Client, you must add or assign a Primary Contact with an email address. Leads are optional—you can add them without a Primary Contact, meaning they won’t have Portal access or receive email notifications.
As a Lead, email notifications are unavailable unless a Primary Contact with an email address is assigned. Companies created as Leads without a Primary Contact appear in the “Idle Companies” list.
To access the Portal, a Company must be a Prospect or Client with an assigned Primary Contact who has an email address.
When assigning a Primary Contact, you can toggle an option to prevent the Primary Contact from switching into ‘Individual Mode’. This restricts them to the Company Portal—they won’t be able to switch to their Individual portal in the Flyout Menu.
When ‘Prevent switching’ is enabled, the Primary Contact is hidden everywhere on the Platform except the Contact List. This prevents Automation and Assignments from being accidentally applied to the ‘Individual’ instead of the Company.
CLICK HERE to learn about preventing a Primary Contact from switching into ‘Individual Mode’.
You also have the option to add a separate email address for Company transactional emails:
Note that “Company Specific” email addresses are ONLY for receiving transactional emails tied to that Company. This email cannot be used for login or any other purpose.
When creating a Company in the CRM, if the Contact you need isn’t in the dropdown, click + Add Primary Contact or + Add Contact to create them.
IMPORTANT: The Role you choose for the Primary Contact is independent of the Role assigned to the Company. The Primary Contact’s Role only matters if you work with them as an Individual outside the Company relationship. If this person is only serving as the Primary Contact and you won’t work with them individually, we recommend adding them as a Prospect—this provides maximum flexibility if your needs change later.
CLICK HERE to learn about Adding & Editing Contacts
Idle Companies
Idle Companies lack an assigned Primary Contact. In this state, you cannot work with them for Invoices, Documents, or other functions because no human representative exists to view or handle your interactions. From the Idle Companies list, use the menu to add a Primary Contact.
To assign a Primary Contact, click the three dots and select Activate.
From here, you can create a new Primary Contact or assign an existing Primary Contact.
Coordinator & Salesperson
A Coordinator is your Staff member designated as the “Point of Contact” for a Prospect or Client. The Coordinator optionally gets email notifications when the Contact performs specific actions in the platform. You can configure notifications for Messages, Files, Projects, Tasks, and more. If no Coordinator is selected, you automatically become the Coordinator as the Staff member creating the Company.
The Salesperson Role has unique features: visibility restrictions on Companies can apply to these users, either manually or automatically. This is called “claiming” a Company, which hides it from other Salesperson Role users. It’s ideal for sales teams needing separation (for example, commission-based structures). A Salesperson differs from a Coordinator—the Salesperson and Coordinator can be the same Staff member or different ones.
CLICK HERE to learn about the Salesperson role
You can assign this Company to one or more Circles. A Circle is the permissioning and assignment structure for Clients and Prospects. If your Company is a Lead, this field won’t appear.
CLICK HERE to learn about Company Circles
Optionally add this Company to an Email Marketing Audience, making it easy to include in Email Marketing Campaigns. If you’ve created a Drip Sequence for that Audience, the Company will immediately begin receiving emails according to your pre-set schedule.
CLICK HERE to learn about Marketing Audiences
Select one or more LMS Product(s). When you “grant” an LMS Product to a Company, they become the Owner. An LMS Product can contain a single Course or multiple Courses—think of it as a “package” or “bundle” you design. Each Course holds Modules, which contain Lessons. If your Company is a Lead, this field won’t appear.
CLICK HEREto learn about LMS
You can apply a Follow-up Generator for this Company. This is a pre-configured sequence of Follow-ups that you can “pre-create” and use in Automation to instantly generate them on your Calendar. Create multiple configurations and apply the right one based on your scenario.
CLICK HEREto learn about Follow-up Generators
A Folder Generator is a predefined folder and file structure you can pre-design and apply as needed. It automatically generates this structure inside the Shared Folder for this Company. You can include any number or level of folders and files. If your Company is a Lead, this field won’t appear.
CLICK HEREto learn about Folder Generators
A Project Generator lets you “pre-create” a Project with custom variables and settings. When triggered, it automatically assigns to the correct Company or Contact. If your Company is a Lead or Prospect, this field won’t appear.
CLICK HEREto learn about Project Generators
An On-Demand Invoice Generator lets you “pre-configure” Invoice details. Create multiple generators for different scenarios, pre-defining line items, amounts, payment options, and payment gateways. It only needs to be triggered and assigned to the right Company or Client. If your Company is a Lead or Prospect, this field won’t appear.
CLICK HEREto learn about On-Demand Generators
If the PLUS Bundle Power-Up is active in your account, you can select Email and/or Form Cannons for this Company. If your Company is a Lead, this field won’t appear.
CLICK HEREto learn about Email Cannons
CLICK HEREto learn about Form Cannons
Trigger a Dynamic Accumulating Invoice Generator and assign it to this Company. If your Company is a Lead or Prospect, this field won’t appear.
CLICK HEREto learn about Accumulating Invoice Generators
Trigger a Dynamic Recurring Generator and assign it to this Company. A Recurring Invoice Generator automatically creates Invoices on your chosen schedule and frequency. If your Company is a Lead or Prospect, this field won’t appear.
CLICK HEREto learn about Recurring Invoice Generators
Dynamic Proposal Generators are not assigned to specific entities. Instead, they let you pre-create and pre-configure content, saving it as a Generator that Automation can reference and trigger dynamically. If your Company is a Lead, this field won’t appear.
Tags are custom labels you create to organize Companies and build your own structure. They’re highly customizable, so design them to fit your needs.
CLICK HERE to learn about Tags
Optionally select a Category for the Company from the dropdown. This section also lets you add Website, Phone number, Skype, and Background information.
CLICK HEREto learn about Content Categories
Enter the location information for the Company. By default, this address appears in other Platform areas (like Estimates or Invoices sent to Prospects or Clients).
Finally, complete any Custom Fields.
Private Custom Fields are viewable only by the Company’s Primary Contact.
Public Custom Fields can be viewed by any Contact associated with the Company.
CLICK HEREto learn about Custom Fields
How do I add an existing Contact to a Company?
Go to CRM > Companies. Select the Company by clicking its name to open the Company Dashboard.
Under Contact Details, click Add.
Choose Assign Existing Contact. A dropdown menu appears where you can select multiple Contacts.
How do I change the Primary Contact?
Navigate to CRM > Companies and click the 3 dots on the Company to see the options. From the list, click Change Primary Contact.
You can now Assign Existing Contact or create a New Primary Contact if the person isn’t yet in the CRM.
To ‘Assign Existing Contact’ click the option, use the dropdown to find the Contact, and click save.
Your Previous Primary Contact automatically becomes a secondary contact of the Company.
How do I make a Company Inactive?
If you’re no longer working with a Company and want to remove it from your Active Companies list, make it inactive. This removes it from the active list but allows you to reactivate it later if needed.
Go to CRM > Companies, click the 3 dots on the Company to see the options:
Once the Company is inactive, go to the Idle/Inactive Companies list to Activate it, copy its UID, or Delete it.
IMPORTANT: If you choose to Delete the Company, all associated data will be permanently removed.