Splitting a Household
In some situations, you may need to split or divide a household. Such situations include Divorce or Separation of a couple leading to the separation of assets. This procedure documents how you could approach such a scenario.
- Select the household.
- Select Edit and click Duplicate Current Entry.
A Box will appear asking what aspects you would like to duplicate, we normally would recommend selecting all options in this list as the history of the household to this point is common to all contacts in that household.
Now we have two households, the Original, and the duplicate.
Identify which of the contacts will retain the original household and who will be part of the new household. In this case, we have nominated Kathy to be the person who is leaving and will be part of the new household.
- Edit the original household and place a Star or brackets around the contact who is leaving or will be in the new household.
This is an indicator to inform us that this person is no longer part of this household.
- Create a user defined field called Important Note and ensure you set up this field with enough characters (255 max).
- In this field in the original household, add a note.
For example, x has left on date x, created a new household.
- In the new household, edit the name of the household to omit the party no longer present.
In this case as Jim is retaining the original household, Kathy will be the new household point of contact. In this case, Kathy will also be returning to her Maiden name, Smith. Also update the contact for Kathy.
- In the new household, remove the contact for the person that is not part of this household – make sure you are selecting the right contact for the right household.
- Finally, remove Kathy’s name from the Jim & Kathy Butler Household (the original household).
When you split a household, there are some added implications. If the original household has any Accounts or Customer Service Cases, these will stay as part of the original household, as these are associated at the household level, with a contact person from that household specified.
