Lead & Referral Management in Financial Services Cloud
A complete guide to how FSC captures, routes, scores, and converts leads and referrals — covering the data model, referral types, household rollups, and admin configuration. Verified Spring ’26.
In financial services, opportunity doesn’t always knock loudly. A client mentions offhand that they’re thinking about retirement. A branch teller notices a customer depositing a windfall. A mortgage advisor gets a warm introduction from a CPA. Every one of these moments is a potential referral — and without a structured system to capture them, they disappear.
Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (FSC) addresses this with a tightly integrated lead and referral management capability. It repurposes and extends the standard Salesforce Lead object for financial services workflows, adds two dedicated referral record types, and connects the resulting data to household rollups, approval processes, and Einstein Lead Scoring. The result is an end-to-end system: from the moment someone expresses an interest, to the moment it becomes a financial account.
This guide walks through the FSC lead and referral management data model, how referral types work, how scoring and routing are configured, and how household rollups surface referral data at the group level.
What Is Lead & Referral Management — and Why It Matters in FSC
In a standard Sales Cloud implementation, Leads represent external prospects: people or companies that haven’t yet become clients. The Lead-to-Opportunity funnel works well for new business acquisition, but it doesn’t map naturally to the day-to-day reality of financial services, where many “referrals” involve existing clients expressing interest in a new product, or a colleague routing a warm introduction.
FSC extends the standard Lead object to serve a dual purpose: traditional prospect acquisition (new-to-bank customers) and the internal referral workflows that financial institutions rely on for growth. This matters because both scenarios need to be tracked, prioritized, and attributed — but they have different characteristics, different owners, and different conversion paths.
FSC uses the Lead object as the foundation for both leads and referrals. Referrals are distinguished by dedicated record types — not a separate object. This is one of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of the feature, and a frequent exam topic.
The practical payoff is significant. Financial institutions using FSC’s lead and referral capabilities can track which clients, colleagues, or external partners (Centers of Influence) generate the most valuable referrals — and ensure no expressed need slips through the cracks between teams or channels.
Leads vs. Referrals in FSC: Knowing When to Use Which
The question of whether to use a Lead or a Referral (or an Opportunity) is one of the more nuanced design decisions in FSC. The answer depends on where the prospect sits in the client lifecycle.
Lead (Standard Record Type)
- Person has no existing relationship with the firm
- Represents new customer acquisition
- Full lead qualification process applies
- Converts to Account, Contact, and optionally Opportunity
- Typical scenario: web-to-lead form, purchased list, cold outreach
Referral (FSC Record Type)
- Person may already be an existing client
- Captures an expressed need or warm handoff
- Quick creation; designed for speed of routing
- On conversion: links to existing Person Account rather than creating a duplicate
- Typical scenario: client expresses mortgage interest, colleague refers for wealth management
For scenarios involving existing clients who need a new product, a Referral (or even an Opportunity) is often more appropriate than a Lead. If you’ve already configured FSC relationships linking clients to their Financial Accounts, an Opportunity preserves that end-to-end traceability through to product opening. Use Referrals when speed of hand-off and referral attribution matter most.
The FSC Lead Data Model
FSC extends the standard Lead object with custom fields designed for financial services lead and referral workflows. The FSC installation guide specifies adding several picklist values to the Lead Status field to support the FSC lead process; the full recommended set is: Unqualified, New, Working – Contacted, Nurturing – Contacted, and Qualified (Converted), with New set as the default.
FSC Custom Fields on the Lead Object
| Field API Name | Type | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
FinServ__ReferredByContact__c |
Lookup (Contact) | The external contact (client, partner, center of influence) who made the referral |
FinServ__ReferredByUser__c |
Lookup (User) | The internal Salesforce user who created or submitted the referral |
FinServ__ExpressedInterest__c |
Picklist | The product or service the prospect expressed interest in (e.g., Mortgage, Credit Card, Investments, Savings Account) |
FinServ__RelatedAccount__c |
Lookup (Account) | Links the referral to an existing Account record — pre-populated on Expressed Interest creation |
FinServ__ReferralDate__c |
Date | When the referral was originally made |
FSC also adds referral tracking fields to the Opportunity object (FinServ__ReferredByContact__c and FinServ__ReferredByUser__c) and to the Account object. These carry referral attribution through from the original Lead/Referral record so that the source of every converted opportunity is traceable.
FSC adds 11 custom fields to the Lead object, 3 to the Opportunity object, and 2 to the Account object as part of the referral data model. These fields ensure referral attribution carries through the full conversion lifecycle from Lead → Opportunity → Account.
FSC Lead Record Types
Out of the box, FSC ships with two referral-specific Lead record types in addition to the standard Lead record type:
Person Referral
The original FSC referral record type (API name: Referral). Used for consumer/retail banking referrals involving individual clients.
Business Referral
Introduced in Winter ’19 to support business-to-business banking referrals. Provides parity for commercial banking workflows.
Custom Record Types
Admins can create additional referral types by cloning the Referral record type and registering it in the ReferralRecordTypeMapper custom metadata type.
Before Winter ’19, the single FSC referral record type was labeled “Referral.” With Winter ’19, it was renamed to “Person Referral” — but its API name remained Referral. If you have code or automations referencing the record type by its label rather than its API name, this can cause unexpected failures. Always reference record types by API name in code and configuration.
Internal vs. External Referrals
FSC distinguishes between two types of referral sources, both of which use the same Referral record type on the Lead object. The distinction is captured in which referrer field is populated on the lead record.
Internal Referral
- Credited to a Salesforce User record
- Populated via
FinServ__ReferredByUser__c - Scenario: a branch teller identifies that a customer needs a mortgage and hands it to a mortgage specialist
- Typical creation path: Expressed Interest action on an existing client’s record
- Internal Referrer lookup is pre-filled with the current user
External Referral
- Credited to a Contact record (a client or partner)
- Populated via
FinServ__ReferredByContact__c - Scenario: an existing client introduces a friend who needs financial planning
- Typical creation path: Referrals Made action on the referrer’s client record
- External referrer is tied to a client’s Contact record for attribution
This dual-referrer model is how FSC enables firms to identify their most valuable Centers of Influence (CPAs, attorneys, estate planners) as well as their top internal referrers — and measure the conversion performance of each. The referrer details on the original Lead record carry through to the Opportunity and Account after conversion.
The Referrals Made Lightning component on a client’s Account page lets advisors quickly log external referrals by placing the current client in the External Referral lookup. The Expressed Interest component lets advisors capture a product interest for an existing client and pre-fills the Internal Referrer lookup with the current user. Both components are configured through Field Sets in Lightning App Builder.
The Referral Lifecycle
FSC structures referral management as a tracked workflow. Rather than a simple creation-and-conversion pattern, referrals move through a defined lifecycle that can incorporate Lead Assignment Rules, Lead Queues, Approval Processes, and Einstein Lead Scoring at each stage.
Stage 1 — Refer
A referral is created — either from a Global Action, from the Referrals Made or Expressed Interest component on a client’s record page, or via a web-to-lead form hosted on an Experience Cloud site. FSC applies the appropriate Referral record type and pre-populates the referrer lookup fields.
Stage 2 — Assign
Standard Salesforce Lead Assignment Rules and Lead Queues handle routing. Rules can assign referrals based on product interest, geography, client tier, or any other field on the lead record. Referrals can be auto-assigned to the correct specialist or team immediately on creation.
Stage 3 — Accept
FSC supports configuring an Approval Process on the Lead object to require explicit referral acceptance before work begins. This is particularly useful for cross-line-of-business referrals where the receiving advisor needs to confirm capacity and intent. Approval processes can also support re-assignment if the initial assignee is unavailable.
Stage 4 — Prioritize
Referrals are prioritized based on Einstein Lead Scoring, the nature of the expressed interest, the client tier, and the historical conversion rate of the referral source. The FSC referral dashboards and reports (from the unmanaged extension package) surface this data for both individual advisors and management teams.
Stage 5 — Convert
Conversion follows the standard Salesforce lead conversion path, with important FSC-specific behavior for Person Account orgs: the system does not create a duplicate client record. Instead, validation rules prompt the user to link the conversion to an existing Person Account. Referrer attribution fields carry through to the resulting Opportunity and Account records.
Einstein Lead Scoring for FSC Referrals
Once a referral is created and assigned, the question becomes: which referral should I work first? FSC addresses this with Einstein Lead Scoring — Salesforce’s AI-powered lead scoring capability that analyzes historical conversion data to predict how likely a given referral is to convert.
Einstein Lead Scoring is integrated into FSC’s intelligent need-based referral workflow. It assigns each lead or referral a predictive score based on historical patterns in your org, helping advisors and bankers triage their queue. A higher score indicates a referral that more closely resembles previously successful conversions.
The original FSC Referrer Score — a 0–100 metric on User and Contact records measuring cumulative successful conversions — was retired by Salesforce in Summer ’23. Einstein Lead Scoring is the current recommended mechanism for prioritizing referrals. Note that Einstein Lead Scoring requires a sufficient volume of historical lead conversion data in the org to generate reliable scores (approximately 1,000 leads and at least 120 converted leads as a baseline).
The distinction between the two scoring concepts is important and frequently tested:
| Concept | What It Measured | Status |
|---|---|---|
| FSC Referrer Score | A 0–100 score on the referrer (User or Contact) indicating how many referrals they successfully converted. Rewarded high-performing referrers. | Retired in Summer ’23 |
| Einstein Lead Scoring | A predictive score on the lead or referral record indicating how likely this specific referral is to convert, based on AI analysis of historical data. | Current recommendation |
The FSC Referrer Score (0–100 on User/Contact) is retired as of Summer ’23. If an exam scenario references “scoring referrals to prioritize which to work first,” the correct answer is Einstein Lead Scoring, not the legacy Referrer Score. Know this distinction.
Referral Rollups at the Household Level
Like Financial Accounts, Financial Goals, and Assets & Liabilities, referrals can be rolled up to the household or group level in FSC. This allows advisors to see all referrals made by — or associated with — members of a household directly on the group record, without navigating to each individual’s record.
Referral rollups are not enabled by default. Admins must explicitly add “Referrals” as a picklist value to the Rollups__c field on the AccountContactRelation (Account Contact Relationship) object.
How Rollup Eligibility Is Determined
A referral rolls up to a household only when both conditions are met:
- The referral is associated with a person who is a member of the household.
- That person’s Account Contact Relationship record has both the Primary Group set to that household and Referrals selected in the
Rollups__cmulti-select field.
Each person can have only one primary group. This is the group to which their data — including referrals — rolls up. If a person belongs to multiple groups but only one is marked as primary, referrals will only aggregate at that primary group level. Changing a person’s primary group changes where their data rolls up, but does not retroactively recompute historical rollups unless batch jobs are run.
Configuring Referral Rollups
- From Setup, open Object Manager, locate Account Contact Relationship.
- Click Fields & Relationships, then select Roll-Ups.
- Under Values, click New and add
Referralsas a picklist value. - Navigate to the relevant Account Contact Relationship records and select Referrals in the Roll-Ups multi-select field for household members whose referrals should aggregate.
- Optionally, configure the Record Rollup Configuration custom setting to optimize batch rollup performance for high-volume orgs.
Admin Setup Guide: Enabling Leads & Referral Management
FSC’s lead and referral management capability requires several configuration steps beyond the base managed package install. The FSC Spring ’26 Installation Guide specifies the following setup sequence.
1. Configure the Lead Status Picklist
- Navigate to Setup → Object Manager → Lead → Fields & Relationships.
- Select the Lead Status field and click into the picklist values.
- Add the FSC-recommended values:
Unqualified,New,Working - Contacted,Nurturing - Contacted,Qualified (Converted). - Set New as the default value.
2. Configure the Opportunity Stage Picklist
FSC recommends adding financial-services-appropriate Stage values to the Opportunity object for converted leads. Recommended values and suggested win probabilities are: Assessment Needed (25%), Develop Proposal (50%), Client Presentation (75%), Initiate Transfer (prior to closing). Add these via Setup → Object Manager → Opportunity → Fields & Relationships → Stage.
3. Install the Unmanaged Extension Package
Referral dashboards, reports, and the full referral scoring workflow require the Intelligent Need-Based Referrals and Scoring unmanaged extension package from Salesforce. This is a free package separate from the core FSC managed package. Install it via AppExchange and assign the relevant permission set to users who need referral reporting access.
4. Add the Referral Lightning Components
Two key components surface referral activity on client record pages:
| Component | Where It Lives | What It Does |
|---|---|---|
| Referrals Made | Account (Person Account) page | Shows all referrals this client has made. Creating a referral here sets the client as the external referrer. |
| Expressed Interest | Account (Person Account) page | Shows product interest captured for this client. Creating an expressed interest here sets the current user as the internal referrer and pre-fills the related account. |
Add both components to the relevant Lightning record pages via Lightning App Builder. Each component uses a Field Set on the Lead object — admins can customize which fields are displayed by editing the corresponding Field Set in Object Manager.
5. Configure Custom Referral Record Types (Optional)
To create a custom referral type beyond Person Referral and Business Referral:
- From Setup → Object Manager → Lead → Record Types, click New.
- In the Existing Record Type picklist, select Referral. Give the new record type a label and description. Set it as active and assign it to the relevant profiles.
- Navigate to Setup → Custom Metadata Types → Referral Record Type Mapper → Manage Referral Record Type Mappers.
- Create a new mapper entry. Enter the label. Enter the API name of the new record type in the API Name field. Enter your org’s namespace if applicable. Save.
Custom referral record types must be registered in the ReferralRecordTypeMapper custom metadata type before they will function correctly with FSC’s referral components and flows. Skipping this step causes the new record type to be ignored by FSC’s routing and attribution logic.
6. Enable Referral Rollups
Follow the steps in the Referral Rollups section above to add Referrals as a picklist value to the Rollups__c field on Account Contact Relationship. Then ensure the Group Record Rollups scheduled job is active — this is what processes rollup calculations on a defined schedule.
Lead Conversion for Person Accounts in FSC
Lead conversion behavior in FSC differs from standard Sales Cloud in one critical way: FSC validation rules prevent the creation of a duplicate Person Account during conversion. This is deliberate — in a financial institution, creating a second record for a person who is already a client would fragment their financial history.
How FSC Conversion Works
When a user converts a Referral or Lead in a Person Account FSC org:
- The standard Salesforce conversion dialog opens. The user is prompted to associate the converted lead with an existing Account rather than creating a new one.
- FSC validation rules enforce this — if the lead matches an existing Person Account, the system requires the user to select that existing record.
- The referrer fields (
FinServ__ReferredByUser__c,FinServ__ReferredByContact__c) are carried through to the resulting Opportunity record via field mapping. - The Lead Status changes to Qualified (Converted) and the Lead record becomes read-only.
For FSC custom lead fields to carry their values through to Opportunity and Account on conversion, admins must configure Lead Field Mapping in Setup. Navigate to Setup → Object Manager → Lead → Fields & Relationships → Map Lead Fields to create mappings between lead fields and their target object counterparts. The FinServ__ReferredByContact__c and FinServ__ReferredByUser__c fields on Opportunity and Account are the target fields for referral attribution.
Leads vs. Referrals on Conversion: A Key Behavioral Difference
When converting a standard Lead (new prospect), the standard Salesforce conversion dialog creates a new Account and Contact. When converting a Referral for an existing client, FSC’s validation rules block new Account creation and require linking to the existing Person Account. This is a tested distinction on the FSC Accredited Professional exam — the conversion behavior is context-dependent based on whether the lead represents a known client or a new prospect.
FSC validation rules on the Lead object prevent creating a duplicate client record during lead conversion for Person Account orgs. When converting a referral for an existing client, the user is required to select the existing Person Account rather than creating a new one. This is the opposite of default Sales Cloud behavior.
10 High-Yield Exam Facts
- Leads AND referrals use the Lead object — referrals are distinguished by a dedicated record type (Person Referral, Business Referral, or custom), not a separate object.
- Two referral record types ship out-of-the-box: Person Referral (consumer banking, API name:
Referral) and Business Referral (introduced in Winter ’19 for B2B banking). The label changed in Winter ’19 but the API name did not — always reference by API name in code. - Internal vs. External Referrers: Internal referrals credit a User via
FinServ__ReferredByUser__c; External referrals credit a Contact viaFinServ__ReferredByContact__c. Both fields are on the Lead, Opportunity, and Account objects. - The FSC Referrer Score (0–100) is retired as of Summer ’23. Einstein Lead Scoring is the current mechanism for prioritizing which referrals to work first.
- FSC custom Lead fields: 11 on Lead, 3 on Opportunity, 2 on Account — ensuring referral attribution carries through the full conversion lifecycle.
- Lead conversion blocks duplicates: In a Person Account FSC org, validation rules prevent creating a new client record on conversion. Users must link the converted referral to an existing Person Account.
- Referral rollups require manual setup: Admins must add
Referralsas a picklist value to theRollups__cfield on Account Contact Relationship. Rollups only apply to members whose primary group is that household. - The unmanaged extension package is required for referral dashboards, reports, and scoring features. This is separate from the core FSC managed package.
- Custom referral record types require a corresponding entry in the
ReferralRecordTypeMappercustom metadata type. Without this mapping, the custom type will not function with FSC’s referral components. - Lead assignment rules and approval processes are the standard Salesforce mechanisms for routing and accepting referrals in FSC. The referral lifecycle cadence is: Refer → Assign → Accept → Prioritize → Convert.
Frequently Asked Questions
In FSC, both leads and referrals use the standard Lead object — but referrals are distinguished by a dedicated record type on the Lead object. The Referral record type is specifically designed for quick hand-offs of expressed client interest between colleagues, while the standard Lead record type is used for new prospect acquisition. FSC extends the Lead object with custom fields to track who made the referral (internal user or external contact), the expressed product interest, and referral-specific rollup data.
The original FSC Referrer Score was a 0–100 metric on the User and Contact records that calculated how many referrals a person successfully converted. Salesforce retired this dedicated Referrer Score feature in Summer ’23. For lead and referral prioritization, FSC now recommends using Einstein Lead Scoring, which predicts the likelihood that a referral will convert based on historical data.
An Internal Referral credits a Salesforce User — typically a colleague or branch staff member within your organization — as the referral source, using the FinServ__ReferredByUser__c field. An External Referral credits a Contact record — typically a client, center of influence, or partner — as the referral source, using the FinServ__ReferredByContact__c field. Both referral types share the same Referral record type on the Lead object.
To show all primary-group-member referrals on a related list at the group or household level, admins must add ‘Referrals’ as a picklist value to the Rollups__c field on the Account Contact Relationship object. Once enabled, only members whose primary group is set to that household will have their referral records aggregated at the group level.
When a referral or lead is converted in a Person Account FSC org, Salesforce does not create a new client record. Instead, validation rules prevent duplication and prompt the user to link the conversion to an existing Person Account record. The referrer details on FinServ__ReferredByUser__c and FinServ__ReferredByContact__c carry through to the resulting Opportunity and Account records, maintaining traceability.
To create a custom referral type, admins create a new record type on the Lead object based on the existing Referral record type and assign it to the relevant profiles. They then navigate to Setup, find Custom Metadata Types, select Referral Record Type Mapper, and create a new mapper entry that maps the API name of the custom record type back to the standard Referral record type. This makes the custom type available in FSC’s referral components.
Salesforce provides a free unmanaged extension package for Intelligent Need-Based Referrals and Scoring. Installing this package gives users access to the pre-built referral dashboards, reports, and related Lightning components. This is separate from the core FSC managed package.
Wrapping Up
Lead and referral management in FSC is one of those features that looks simple on the surface — it’s just the Lead object — but contains significant depth once you understand how FSC extends it. The dual record type model, the internal/external referrer distinction, the field mapping requirements for conversion, the household rollup configuration, and the shift from the legacy Referrer Score to Einstein Lead Scoring are all layers that admins and practitioners need to understand.
For financial institutions, getting this right means every expressed need gets captured, every referral gets attributed to the right source, and the right person gets notified fast enough to act. That’s the difference between a feature on a slide deck and a feature that actually drives growth.
For deeper FSC coverage — including household management, ARC configuration, the FSC data model, and the FSC sharing model — visit the Financial Services Cloud Accredited Professional exam prep course at CertifySF, or browse all available Salesforce certification study paths.
All technical claims verified against the official Salesforce Spring ’26 Installation Guide, FSC Developer Object Reference, and Trailhead module: Configure Record Rollups — Group Level Opportunities. Study smarter at CertifySF.com.