# Accounts and groups (https://www.getfounderhq.com/docs/analytics/concepts/accounts-and-groups)

An account is the company or workspace a contact belongs to. Other
tools call this a group. FounderHQ calls it an account, because it is
also who pays.

Consumer product? You can skip this page. Contacts are enough.

## Why accounts exist

If your product is sold to teams, one payment covers many seats. Tie
that payment to a single contact and you credit the payer, ignore the
teammate whose demo actually won the deal, and read `$0` next to every
other seat. An account fixes that: revenue and touches belong to the
workspace.

## Tell FounderHQ which account is active

```ts
founderhq.setAccount("workspace_123");
founderhq.setAccountProperties({ name: "Acme", seats: 12 });
founderhq.clearAccount();
```

Every event captured afterwards carries that account. On the web, the
active account is per tab, so someone with two workspaces open in two
tabs reports each correctly. On mobile, it is per app session.

When a sign-in changes both the person and the workspace, change them
together:

```ts
founderhq.identify("user_8421", { email: "jane@acme.com" }, {
  account: "workspace_123",
});
```

Switching accounts does not restart the person's session. It rotates a
separate account span, so your session metrics stay honest.

## Declare membership from your server

The active account on an event is an observation. Your backend knows
the truth: who joined, who left, and when. Only the Node SDK can say
so.

```ts
events.accountMembership({
  account: "workspace_123",
  userId: "user_8421",
  state: "left",
  effectiveAt: new Date("2026-08-17T10:30:00Z"),
  idempotencyKey: "membership_user_8421_left_2026_08_17",
});
```

- `joined` and `left` record real changes. A leave stops later activity
  from counting for that account.
- `retracted` means the membership was wrong from the start. Do not use
  it when someone departs.
- `upsertAccount` updates the account's own properties from the server.

## How accounts change the numbers

- A payment belongs to exactly one subject: a contact or an account.
  Never both, and never copied to each seat.
- Account attribution uses the touches of everyone who was a member at
  the time the money was earned. Touches from before the account
  existed still count, because visit → signup → create workspace → pay
  is the normal path.
- If a person belongs to two accounts and browses without an active
  account, that touch counts for neither.
- Bot traffic never creates membership and never counts as a touch.

## Related

- [Attribution](/analytics/concepts/attribution)
- [Identity and contacts](/analytics/concepts/identity-and-contacts)
- [Node SDK](/analytics/sdks/node)