# Contacts (people and companies) You can start from a deal and have a contact auto-created in the background, or start from a contact and create deals through them, the traditional CRM way. Both flows work. Fluid does not force you into one workflow. The contacts page stays lightweight either way so you can focus on the work, not the data entry. ### Contacts in Fluid CRM Contacts represent real people you are working with. They are connected to deals and to companies and stay in sync automatically. You manage relationships and active work in one place, without separate contact and deal databases that need manual reconciliation. Key principles: * Contacts can be created from a deal or directly from the Contacts page * One contact can be linked to multiple deals * Contacts are auto-linked to companies * Companies can have multiple contacts and multiple deals * Updates flow automatically across linked records Fluid intentionally avoids heavy contact management to keep your system fast and focused. ### The two views: People and Companies The Contacts page has two views you can toggle between. **People view** Shows every contact in your workspace with: * Name * Email * Phone * Company * Deal count * Total value of associated deals * Last activity Useful when you want to see everyone you are working with, across companies. **Companies view** Rolls everything up by company. Shows: * Company name * Number of contacts at that company * Number of active deals * Total value across all deals at the company * Status indicators for active vs closed deals Useful for multi-stakeholder deals, account-based outbound and seeing who else you have talked to at a given company. Toggle between People and Companies anytime from the top of the Contacts page. ### How contacts get created There are four ways contacts enter Fluid. **From a deal** When you create a deal, the contact is created automatically if they do not exist. The company is also created and linked if it does not exist. This is the fastest path when you are working from active sales conversations. **From the Contacts page** You can create a contact directly from the Contacts page without an associated deal. This is useful when: * Adding a person to your network who is not yet a deal * Building out company stakeholders before outreach * Migrating relationships you want to track but are not actively selling to yet From a contact, you can then create one or multiple deals through them, the traditional CRM way. **From CSV import** When you import contacts via the import flow: * Each unique email becomes a contact * Each unique company becomes a Company entry * Existing contacts and companies are matched by email and company name You can import contacts standalone or import deals that auto-create their linked contacts. **From the API or a Lead form** When a lead comes in through the API or a Lead form: * Contact and company auto-create * The deal lands in the pipeline you specified * Reminders trigger if you have automations set up ### Creating deals from a contact To add a deal to an existing contact: * Open the contact from the People view * Click Add deal * Pick the pipeline and stage * Set the value * Add notes or any custom fields * Save The new deal is linked to the contact automatically. The contact's deal count and total value update immediately. This is useful for: * Long-term clients who buy from you multiple times * Multi-stakeholder accounts where each contact has their own deal * Renewal or expansion pipelines tied to existing customers * Recurring engagements with the same company ### Viewing contacts and their deals In the People view, you can: * See all contacts at a glance * Expand a contact to see all their associated deals * Open any deal directly from the contact row * Add a new deal to the contact * Understand deal status and value without leaving the page In the Companies view, you can: * See all companies you have contacts at * Expand a company to see every contact at that company * See every deal across all contacts at that company * Useful for account-based selling where you need to know who you have already talked to ### Editing contacts You can edit contacts at any time without affecting their associated deals. Click the edit icon in the Contacts view to update: * Name * Email * Phone * Social media profile URL * Website * Company * Title * Notes * Any custom contact fields you have created Contact updates are reflected across all associated deals automatically. Important: * Editing a contact does not duplicate or recreate deals * Contacts remain linked to their existing deal history * Changing the company on a contact reassigns them in the Companies view automatically ### Search and filter contacts In the Contacts view, you can: * Search contacts by name or email in real time * Filter by pipeline * Filter by deal status (won, lost, active) * Filter by stage * Filter by deal value * Filter by tag or label * Filter by data quality (missing email, missing phone, missing company) * Filter by recency (recent activity, no activity in 30 days, etc.) These filters help you spot stale relationships, find incomplete records and prioritize outreach. ### Deal association Contacts and deals are linked automatically, both directions. * Create a deal and the contact is created or linked * Create a contact and you can add deals to them later * A single contact can be linked to multiple deals * A single company can have multiple contacts and deals From the Contacts view, you can: * Expand a contact to see all related deals * Open any deal directly from the contact row * See active deal value and historical deal outcomes per contact * Add a new deal to the contact There is no manual association step required. Fluid handles all deal-to-contact and contact-to-company relationships automatically in the background. ### Merge duplicates Duplicates happen, especially when you: * Import data from another CRM * Use Lead forms with overlapping inbound * Capture leads from multiple sources The Merge Duplicates function lets you clean up in seconds without going through one by one. From the Contacts view: * Click Merge Duplicates * Fluid surfaces potential duplicate contacts based on email and name matching * Review the suggested merges * Confirm or skip each pair After merging: * All deals from both contacts are preserved * Activity history is combined * The duplicate contact is removed ### Why this matters Most CRMs force you to choose between two modes. Either contacts-first, where you build a contact database first and create deals through them, or deals-first, where everything starts with a sales conversation. Fluid supports both. You can work the way that matches the situation: * New outbound lead? Create a deal, contact auto-creates * Existing relationship without an active deal? Create the contact, add deals later * Account-based selling? Build the company stakeholders first, then add deals as they emerge The Contacts and Companies views work as a real relationship database, while staying tightly synced with active deals so the work always stays visible. ### What to read next * Deals, how to create deals that auto-create contacts and companies * Customize data fields, add custom fields to contacts * Import your data, bringing existing contacts into Fluid * Lead forms, capture inbound leads that auto-create contacts --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. 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