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Financial services professionals don’t just manage individual clients — they manage families, trusts, business entities, and intricate networks of personal and professional connections. Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (FSC) was designed with this reality in mind. Two of its most foundational capabilities — Household Management and the Relationship Builder — give advisors, bankers, and relationship managers the tools to see the complete picture of every client they serve.

Whether you’re preparing for the Financial Services Cloud Accredited Professional exam or configuring FSC in a production org, understanding how households and relationships work together is essential. This post breaks down both features, how they connect, the data model underneath, and key admin considerations — all verified against the official Salesforce Spring ’26 documentation.

What Is a Household in Financial Services Cloud?

A household in FSC represents a group of related individuals — typically a family — whose financial lives are interconnected. Think of a married couple who share checking accounts, investment portfolios, and financial goals. A household account lets advisors see all of that in a single, consolidated view.

But households aren’t limited to families. FSC uses the broader concept of a group, which is simply a collection of individuals whose relationships and shared attributes matter to how you serve them. A household is the most common group type, but admins can create additional group types to represent things like business partnerships, trust structures, or referral networks.

Two Paths to Households: Managed Package vs. Standard Feature

One of the most important distinctions to understand — and a frequent exam topic — is that FSC offers household functionality through two separate paths:

Object Mapping Between the Two Models

When the Group Membership setting is turned on and the managed package is installed, both standard and managed package objects are visible in the org. Admins must be consistent in their choice. Here is the official mapping:

Understanding the Group Data Model

At its core, a group is a type of Account record that people and businesses can be related to through the Account Contact Relationship object. FSC includes a built-in Household group type, but admins can create custom group types by adding a record type to the Account object and mapping it to the Group Record Type custom metadata type.

What Is Group Membership?

Group membership defines the relationship between a group and a person or business. It answers three key questions:

What role does this member play? — For example, Rachel Adams might be the “Client” (primary household member), while her partner Nigel is “Spouse.”

Is this member the primary member? — The primary member is the person you contact first about matters affecting the entire group.

Is this group the member’s primary group? — This determines which group the member’s information rolls up into. Each person can only have one primary group. The rollup options include any combination of: Financial Accounts, Financial Goals, Events, Tasks, Assets and Liabilities, and Referrals.

Direct vs. Indirect Members

Group membership is modeled using the Account Contact Relationship object. Groups can have two types of members:

Direct (individual) members — The membership of a person in a group, such as a client belonging to a household.

Indirect (business) members — The membership of a business in a group, which only occurs when both conditions are met: (1) the business is related to a person in the group, and (2) the business’s “Add to Group” flag is set.

The Relationship Builder & Relationship Map

Beyond household groupings, FSC models one-to-one relationships between people and businesses. These relationships reveal spheres of influence, professional connections, and family structures that go beyond the household boundary.

How Relationships Are Modeled

FSC uses three key objects to represent relationships:

Each relationship is further described by a Reciprocal Role — a custom object that captures the nature of the relationship from both sides. For example, a “Client–Power of Attorney” relationship automatically creates the inverse “Power of Attorney–Client” record in the standard model.

FSC includes predefined reciprocal roles such as Spouse–Spouse, Parent–Dependent, Grandparent–Grandchild, Lawyer–Client, Accountant–Client, and Proprietor–Business. Admins can customize these roles, and when the “Create Inverse Role” option is selected during creation, Salesforce automatically generates the corresponding inverse record.

The Relationship Map Component (Managed Package)

The Relationship Map is a visual Lightning component that displays relationships for accounts, contacts, and individuals at both person and group levels. Admins can control visibility by enabling or disabling Show Related Accounts and Show Related Contacts through Lightning App Builder — providing role-based views. For example, a financial advisor might see all related accounts and contacts, while a bank teller sees a simplified view.

The Group Builder Edit Window (Managed Package)

The Group Builder Edit window is the primary interface for managing household membership within the managed package. It displays up to four configurable sections:

1. Who are the members of this group? — Always shown. Uses Account Contact Relationship.
2. How is this group related to other groups? — Uses Account-Account Relationship.
3. Do the members have relationships with other accounts? — Uses Account Contact Relationship. Must be enabled via Feature Flag Settings.
4. Do the members have relationships with other people? — Uses Contact-Contact Relationship. Must be enabled via Feature Flag Settings.

Actionable Relationship Center (ARC)

The Actionable Relationship Center (ARC) takes relationship visualization to the next level. While the Relationship Map provides a static view, ARC delivers an interactive, graph-based interface where users can view, create, edit, and delete records directly from the relationship visualization.

Two Versions of ARC

New ARC (introduced Summer ’22) lets admins create custom ARC Relationship Graphs using any objects relevant to their users. Components include ARC Details Panel, ARC Highlights Panel, ARC Relationship Graph, and ARC Einstein Relationship Insights.

Original ARC provides preconfigured, view-only relationship graphs using the ARC Financial Services Cloud component.

ARC Relationship Types & Association Types

ARC displays three types of account relationships, each categorized by Association Type:

ARC also supports Account-Contact Relationships (ACRs) and Contact-Contact Relationships (CCRs), enabling a complete view of both B2B and B2C relationship networks.

Setting Up ARC

1. Permission Set — Clone the Financial Services Cloud Extension permission set and enable the “Access Actionable Relationship Center” system permission.
2. Association Types — Ensure the Association Type field on Account-Account Relationship has active picklist values for Group, Member, and Peer.
3. Person Accounts — ARC is supported only for orgs using the Person Account model, not the Individual model.
4. Object Visibility — Users must have at least read access to objects and fields referenced on a graph to view corresponding cards.

Default ARC Templates

B2C Graph — Preconfigured nodes showing members, related households, and household accounts for consumer clients.

B2B Graph — Preconfigured nodes showing subsidiaries, employees, opportunities, and cases for commercial clients.

Admins can also build fully custom graphs for different user profiles. For example, a financial advisor graph focused on household relationships alongside a separate investment banker graph focused on corporate structures and deal flow.

ARC Integrations

Compliant Data Sharing — Allows record owners to share account or opportunity records with other relevant users directly from ARC.

Einstein Relationship Insights — Displays intelligent web-sourced recommendations within ARC to help users discover hidden relationships, create new records, or dismiss irrelevant suggestions.

Household API for Wealth Management

For organizations integrating FSC data with external financial planning tools, the Household API provides a programmatic way to retrieve aggregated household details via Connect API calls. The API retrieves household members, their financial accounts, assets, financial holdings, and liabilities — all associated with the household.

How It Works

The Household API uses the Data Processing Engine and Record Rollup Definitions to aggregate data. Salesforce provides an unmanaged package containing four preconfigured rollup definitions:

1. Financial holdings for members of a household
2. Financial accounts for members of a household
3. Assets and liabilities for members of a household
4. Members of a household

Setup requires assigning the Record Aggregation Access permission, installing the unmanaged package, generating the Data Processing Engine definition via REST API, adding rollup definitions to schedule-triggered flows, and configuring Household API Setup. The API supports aggregation to either the Account object or the Party Relationship Group object.

Creating Households: The User Experience

From the Accounts Tab

Users create a household by selecting the Household record type and entering a household name. The Relationships tab then provides options to add members through the relationship map or Group Members section.

From a Client Profile

Advisors create households directly from a client’s profile. If the Multiple Relationship Groups custom setting is enabled, a client can belong to more than one household — useful for complex family structures or professional associations.

With the Individual Builder

When using the person model, the Create Individual builder provides a streamlined guided flow to create a client and optionally add them to a relationship group. Users designate the primary member, assign roles, select the primary group, and choose which activities and information to roll up — all in one workflow.

Wrapping Up

Household Management and the Relationship Builder aren’t just features — they’re the foundational architecture that makes Financial Services Cloud a purpose-built CRM for financial institutions. They transform Salesforce from a generic contact database into a relationship intelligence platform that mirrors how financial professionals actually think about their clients.

Whether you’re a wealth management advisor tracking a family’s multi-generational assets, a retail banker managing household checking and savings accounts, or an insurance agent understanding beneficiary structures, these capabilities give you a 360-degree view that drives deeper engagement and better outcomes.

Master these concepts at CertifySF.com, and you’ll be well-prepared for both the certification exam and real-world FSC implementations.