Every entry in your database must be classified as either an Individual (also know as a Person) or an Organization. This allows Members360° to properly track fields for different types of members.
In addition, each record can be identified as either a Member or an Affiliate. This indicates whether the person or organization is an actual member, or if they're someone related to the association but not an actual member (such as a vendor). You can change the term "affiliate" to whatever you like; see Configuring member settings for more details.
This gives you four overall types of database records: person members, person affiliates, organization members and organization affiliates. See Member and affiliate types for more information.
An Individual (Person) is an individual member - that is, not a company, but rather the person him/herself. If the member is identified primarily by his/her first and last name, the member should be considered an individual.
An Organization is a company, association, or other entity in your database. If the member is identified primarily by a company or organization name, the member should be classified as an organization.
Individuals and organizations can be linked together using member relationships. This way, you can define an organization and any number of linked individuals, or a person who's affiliated with one or more corporations.
There are different generic fields available to people and organizations (see Generic database fields). Furthermore, every custom field you create is either an individual custom field or an organization custom field (see Custom profile fields). The only exceptions are contact information fields, such as phone and address, which apply to both companies and individuals.