An account is a formal record used to track transactions and activities for a specific person, item, or entity. While commonly associated with banking and finance for tracking money, the concept also extends to business for managing client relationships and to the internet for providing access to digital platforms.
The word "account" first appeared in 14th-century English, borrowed from the Anglo-French 'acunte'. This term originated from the Latin verb 'computare', which means "to count" or "compute". Its etymology underscores the word's foundational link to the act of tallying and reckoning values.
The practical application of accounts evolved with the rise of double-entry bookkeeping. For centuries, transactions were meticulously recorded in manual ledgers. As commerce grew more complex, these physical books gave way to the sophisticated digital accounting systems used today.
The term 'account' is versatile, appearing in various aspects of daily life and business. Its meaning shifts depending on the context, but it always refers to a record or arrangement for a specific purpose.
While both are core accounting concepts, an account and an accrual serve distinct functions in financial reporting.
The concept of an account is central to accounting, operating within a broader framework of related terms. These concepts work together to ensure financial activities are recorded accurately and systematically, forming the backbone of any financial reporting system.
This is how you can scale personalized outbound campaigns.
How does an "account" in a CRM differ from a "lead"?
A lead is an unqualified prospect, while an account is a qualified organization you have a business relationship with. Leads are typically converted into accounts, contacts, and opportunities after they have been vetted by your sales or marketing teams.
What is the significance of parent-child account relationships?
This hierarchy links a main corporate headquarters (parent) with its subsidiaries or branches (children). It provides a complete view of a business entity, which is crucial for strategic selling, identifying cross-sell opportunities, and understanding complex organizational structures.
Why is enriching account data so important for sales?
Enriched data provides a 360-degree view of a prospect, including firmographics, technographics, and buying signals. This enables highly personalized outreach, better lead scoring, and ultimately, higher conversion rates for outbound campaigns.
Multi-channel marketing uses various platforms—like email, social media, and direct mail—to engage with customers wherever they are.
Fulfillment logistics is the entire process of getting an order to a customer, from storing inventory to picking, packing, and final shipment.
A cloud-based CRM is a customer relationship management tool hosted online, letting teams access and manage customer data from anywhere.
Solution selling is a sales approach focused on understanding a customer's pain points to offer a comprehensive solution, not just a product.
Sales and marketing alignment means both teams work in sync, sharing goals and data to boost lead quality, conversions, and company revenue.
A talk track is a script that guides sales reps during calls. It ensures they cover key points and maintain a consistent message with prospects.
Net Revenue Retention (NRR) is the percentage of recurring revenue kept from existing customers, including upsells, downgrades, and churn.
A touchpoint is any time a potential or existing customer comes in contact with your brand, from seeing an ad to receiving an email.
Total Addressable Market (TAM) represents the maximum revenue a company can earn by selling its product or service in a specific market.
Database management is the process of organizing, storing, and maintaining data in a database to ensure its accuracy, security, and availability.
Sales forecast accuracy is a key metric that compares your predicted sales revenue against the actual sales revenue you ultimately achieve.
A Product Qualified Lead (PQL) is a user who has experienced a product's value, signaling a strong potential to convert to a paid customer.
Predictive lead generation uses data and AI to find prospects most likely to buy, helping teams focus their efforts on high-value leads.
Email personalization uses subscriber data—like their name, interests, or past behavior—to create highly relevant and targeted email campaigns.
Multi-threading allows a single CPU core to run multiple independent threads (or tasks) at the same time, boosting efficiency and performance.
Data mining is the process of discovering patterns, trends, and useful information from large datasets to make better business decisions.
Phishing attacks are fraudulent attempts to trick you into revealing sensitive data like passwords or financial info by posing as a trusted source.
Inbound lead generation is the process of attracting potential customers to your business with valuable content and tailored experiences.
Smarketing is the process of aligning your sales and marketing teams. This integration focuses on shared goals to improve lead quality and drive revenue.
Social selling is the art of using social media to find, connect with, build relationships with, and nurture sales prospects.
Marketing intelligence is gathering and analyzing data about your market, customers, and competitors to inform strategic marketing decisions.
Learn about B2B buyer intent data, including sources and types of buyer intent data, & key benefits of leveraging buyer intent data.
Sentiment analysis, or opinion mining, automatically determines the emotional tone behind text—whether it's positive, negative, or neutral.
Firmographic data is information used to classify firms. It includes attributes like industry, employee count, location, and annual revenue.
Direct-to-consumer (D2C) is a sales strategy where a brand sells its products directly to end customers, bypassing any third-party retailers.
Copyright compliance is adhering to laws that protect creative works. It involves legally using content by obtaining permission or licenses.
Sales pipeline management is the process of organizing, tracking, and managing potential deals through every stage of your sales funnel.
Learn about B2B contact base, including building an effective B2B contact base, & strategies for expanding your contact base.
Funnel analysis is a method for understanding the steps users take to complete a goal, revealing where they drop off in the conversion process.
Key accounts are a company's most valuable customers, vital due to their significant revenue contribution and strategic importance for growth.
Psychographics categorizes people by their attitudes, interests, and lifestyles, revealing the 'why' behind their purchasing decisions.
Intent leads are prospects who show buying signals through their online actions, indicating they're actively looking to make a purchase.
Amortization is the process of spreading out a loan or the cost of an intangible asset over a specific period for accounting and tax purposes.
Total Audience Measurement (TAM) provides a holistic view of content consumption, tracking viewership across all platforms and devices.
Demand capture is the strategy of engaging potential customers who are already actively looking for a solution that your company provides.
A sales presentation is a formal pitch by a salesperson to a prospective customer, showcasing a product or service to secure a sale.
A soft sell is a low-pressure sales tactic that uses subtle persuasion and relationship-building to gently guide customers toward a purchase.
Data enrichment is the process of enhancing raw data by adding missing information from other sources, making it more complete and actionable.
Data-driven lead generation is the process of using data insights to identify, attract, and convert high-quality leads into customers.
A hard sell is an aggressive sales technique that uses high-pressure tactics to push a customer into making an immediate purchase decision.
CPM, or Cost Per Mille, is a key advertising metric. It's the cost an advertiser pays for one thousand views or impressions of a single ad.
The sales pipeline velocity formula is a key metric that measures how quickly deals move through your pipeline and turn into revenue.
Channel marketing is a strategy where a company sells its products or services through third-party partners, like resellers or affiliates.
MEDDICC is a sales qualification framework for complex B2B deals. It helps reps identify and validate key aspects of an opportunity to close more effectively.
A Quarterly Business Review (QBR) is a recurring meeting to assess performance against goals and align on strategy for the next quarter.
Account mapping is comparing your customer list with a partner's to find common prospects and unlock new sales opportunities.
Expansion revenue is the extra money a business makes from its current customers via upgrades, new products, or additional services.
Learn about brand awareness, including understanding its importance, building an effective strategy, key metrics to track, & examples in the real world.
Incident response is an organization's systematic approach to managing and mitigating the aftermath of a security breach or cyberattack.
Audience targeting is the process of segmenting consumers into specific groups to deliver more personalized and relevant marketing messages.
Load balancing is the practice of distributing incoming network traffic across a group of backend servers, ensuring no single server is overworked.
A stakeholder is any individual, group, or party that has an interest in an organization and the outcomes of its actions.
Enrichment is the process of adding third-party data to your existing customer profiles to get a more complete picture of your leads.
Churn, also known as customer attrition, is the rate at which customers stop doing business with a company over a given period.
Customer journey mapping is the process of creating a visual story of your customers' interactions with your brand across all touchpoints.
Sales territory planning is the process of dividing customers into geographic areas to be assigned to specific sales reps or teams.
A Representational State Transfer (REST) API is a web service that uses a simple, stateless architecture for systems to communicate online.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a system of integrated software that businesses use to manage and automate their core day-to-day processes.
A triggered email is an automated message sent to a user in response to a specific action or event, like signing up or making a purchase.
Lookalike audiences are groups of potential customers who share similar characteristics and behaviors with your existing, high-value customers.
Market intelligence is the process of collecting and analyzing data about your target market, competitors, and industry to guide business strategy.
Consultative selling is a sales approach where a salesperson acts as an advisor, focusing on understanding and solving a customer's specific needs.
A sales playbook is a guide that outlines your sales process, best practices, and tools to help reps sell more efficiently and consistently.
An electronic signature is a digital method for getting consent on electronic documents. It's a legally binding way to sign agreements online.
Demand generation is the process of creating awareness and interest in your products to build a pipeline of qualified leads for your sales team.
No Cold Calls is a sales strategy that replaces unsolicited calls with warm outreach to prospects who have already demonstrated interest.
A vertical market is a niche where businesses cater to a specific industry or group of customers with specialized needs, not the mass market.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) is technology that controls access to copyrighted digital content, restricting its use, modification, and distribution.
Email engagement measures how your audience interacts with your emails. It includes key actions like opens, clicks, replies, and forwards.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a focused B2B strategy where marketing and sales collaborate to target and convert high-value accounts.
A Letter of Intent (LOI) is a document declaring the preliminary commitment of one party to do business with another, outlining the chief terms.
A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is an action plan that outlines how a company will reach target customers and achieve a competitive advantage.
Content Rights Management involves controlling the use and distribution of copyrighted digital media to protect intellectual property.
A needs assessment is the process of identifying the gap between a company's current state and its desired future state.
HubSpot is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform with tools for marketing, sales, and service, all aimed at helping businesses grow.
A sales demonstration is a presentation showing a prospect how a product or service works and how it can solve their specific problems.
Forecasting uses historical data to make informed predictions about future trends, helping businesses anticipate outcomes and plan accordingly.
Marketing Operations (MOps) is the engine of a marketing team, managing the technology, processes, and people to run campaigns effectively.
Shipping solutions are services or software that streamline the logistics of getting products to customers, from label printing to final delivery.
Competitive analysis means identifying your rivals and assessing their strategies to pinpoint your own business's strengths and weaknesses.
The Challenger Sales Model is a sales approach where reps challenge a customer's thinking by teaching, tailoring, and taking control of the sale.
CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) software is a sales tool for creating accurate, configurable quotes for complex products and services.
Cloud storage is a service model where data is stored on remote servers and accessed from the internet, rather than on a local drive.
Average Selling Price (ASP) is the average price at which a particular product or service is sold across different markets and channels.
Logo retention is a key B2B metric that measures a company's ability to retain its customers, or 'logos,' over a specific period.
Learn about B2B2C, including benefits of B2B2C model, key strategies for B2B2C success, & B2B2C vs. B2C vs. B2B: understanding the differences.
Data privacy is an individual's right to control their personal information, including how it's collected, processed, stored, and shared.
Ransomware is a type of malicious software that encrypts a victim's files, holding them hostage until a ransom is paid for the decryption key.
The Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework focuses on understanding customer needs by identifying the specific 'job' they are trying to accomplish.
An Account Development Representative (ADR) identifies and qualifies new business opportunities, creating a pipeline for account executives.
Persona-based marketing uses fictional customer profiles, or personas, to create targeted messaging for specific audience segments.
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a software application that manages your entire hiring and recruitment process from a single dashboard.
The open rate is the percentage of recipients who opened an email. It's a primary indicator of a subject line's effectiveness.
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) is the predictable income a company expects to receive from its customers over a one-year period.
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is software that gathers and organizes customer data from various touchpoints into a single, unified profile.
Personalization is the practice of using data to tailor products, services, or content to an individual's specific needs and preferences.
Application Performance Management (APM) monitors and manages an application's performance, availability, and the experience of its end-users.
Consultative selling is an approach where salespeople act as expert advisors, diagnosing customer needs to provide the most suitable solutions.
Cohort analysis is a behavioral analytics tool that groups users with common traits to track their actions and engagement over time.
Customer loyalty is a customer’s devotion to a brand, shown by their repeat purchases and engagement, driven by positive experiences and trust.