Difference between Record Types and Contact Types

Hi @JSJ, thanks for posting! Your understanding is pretty much spot-on. I’ll explain in more detail below.

Let’s split your question into parts.

What are Record Types?

In Copper, a Record Type refers to one of these broad categories: People, Companies, Opportunities, Tasks, Projects, and Leads (if enabled).

For example, if you add me to Copper, you will have a record called Michelle Lee. And the record type is Person.

If you add Ford Motors, you will have a record called Ford Motors. And its record type is Company.

Why does it matter? Because you save different information for each Record Type. For example, when you add Person, you should fill in their Position. But when you add a Company to Copper, it won’t ask for the Position because that’s not relevant for a Company.

Likewise, you don’t put a Due Date for a Company record. Because Due Date is only for Tasks and Projects.

What are Contact Types?

“Contact Type” is a dropdown on Person and Company record types.

When you add Michelle Lee to Copper, you get a dropdown that asks: what is Michelle’s Contact Type? Potential Customer? Current Customer? Likewise, when you add Ford Motors, it will also present you with the Contact Type dropdown.

The purpose of the Contact Type dropdown is to allow you to organize and filter your People and Companies based on their relationship with you. For example, you can go back to your People list and look at everyone whose Contact Type is set to Current Customer.

What’s the difference?

• Record type refers to a broad category in Copper: People, Companies, Opportunities, Tasks, Projects, or Leads
• Contact Type is a specific dropdown option available only on the People and Company record types.

Let me know if that’s helpful or if I just added to your confusion 😅

And thank you for the feedback as well! I will review it with our help content team.