Last updated: December 6, 2023
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In HubSpot, you can associate companies with the default Parent company and Child company association labels. You can add parent or child companies on a record manually, or in bulk through an import.
Each parent company can have multiple associated child companies, but a child company can only be associated with one parent company.
Associate parent and child companies
Parent company and Child company are labels used to describe the relationship between two companies.
- In your HubSpot account, navigate to Contacts > Companies.
- Click the name of the company you want to edit.
- Click +Add company in the Companies card.
- Search for the company you want to associate, select the checkbox, then click Next.
- Click +Add association label then select Child company or Parent Company from the dropdown menu.
- Click Save.
- In the Companies card, hover over the company, then click More.
- In the dropdown menu, select Edit association labels.
- In the dialog box, select Child company or Parent Company from the dropdown menu.
- Click Update.
Learn more about associating records and setting association labels.
Import to associate child and parent companies in bulk
You can add child companies to parent companies in bulk through an import. The parent companies must already exist in your CRM before you import the child companies. Prior to importing, learn more about how to properly set up import files.
- Get the Record ID or Company domain name values of the existing companies you want to be parent companies. You can find this by searching Record ID/Company domain name on an individual company record, or in bulk by exporting the companies.
- Create an import file containing the child companies.
- In the import file, include a column with the header Parent company. For each row containing a child company, add the Record ID value of their parent company in the Associated company [ID/domain name] column. Include an Association label column containing the value Parent company.
- Import the file.
- On the Map columns in your file to company properties screen:
- In the Associated company ID row, click the Import as column, then select Association. Click the HubSpot property column, then select Record ID/Company domain name.
- In the Association label row, click the Import as column, then select Association label.
- Finish the import. The imported companies will be added to your CRM and will be included as child companies on the parent company records.
Merging companies in a parent-child relationship
You can merge companies that are in a parent-child relationship, however merges may fail if the parent-child companies are included in a loop. A loop occurs when a parent record is associated to itself in a chain of associations. This type of merge is unavailable to avoid making incorrect changes to your data, because when a loop occurs, there isn't a way to correctly infer which company should be the parent or child record. For example:
- Stars Hollow Town Council is a parent company to Stars Hollow Tourism.
- Stars Hollow Tourism is a parent company to The Dragonfly Inn.
- You cannot merge The Dragonfly Inn into Stars Hollow Town Council because it cannot be determined whether the resulting merged record should be a parent or child company to Stars Hollow Tourism.
Example of a merge that would fail
If the option to merge is unavailable or your merge fails, remove the Parent/Child company association label from the companies you're merging. After removing the label, you'll be able to complete the merge.
Merges may still fail if you've enabled the Salesforce integration, or if the companies have reached the combined limit of 250 merges. Learn more about merging companies.
