capture

Accounts and relationships

ESSENTIALEstimated read: 8 min· Updated 2026-10-10

Accounts and relationships

EssentialBusiness Development + Manager

Accounts is Axis Capture's CRM: the people and organizations behind the work — agencies, primes, partners, subcontractors and vendors — and what your team knows about each of them. It is private to your workspace. The public record tells you who awarded a contract; this is where you keep who you actually spoke to, what they said, and whether they are on your side.

TL;DR — Open Axis Capture → Set up → Accounts. Add an organization, then add contacts under it with their relationship to you. Log each call, email or meeting in the contact's Communication history. Open View relationships to see what a contact or organization is connected to and what those pursuits became.

Before you start

  • Who can edit. Business Development Users, Managers and Capture Administrators add and edit organizations and contacts. Removing a record is narrower — Managers and Capture Administrators only — because a contact carries communication history that an edit never destroys. Everyone else with access to Axis Capture can read the CRM.
  • Notes are private. The Private notes on organizations and contacts, and the What was said of every logged exchange, are readable only by people in your workspace. They are never shared, never indexed for search and never written to the audit trail.

Organizations

FieldWhat it doesAccepted values / default
OrganizationThe organization's name.Required. Must be unique within your workspace.
TypeWhat the organization is to you.Agency, Prime, Partner, Subcontractor, Vendor or Other.
What they doA short description.Optional.
WebsiteTheir site.Optional.
Reference idYour own identifier for them, for example from another system.Optional.
Private notesWhat your team knows.Private to the workspace; never in the audit trail.

Contacts

FieldWhat it doesAccepted values / default
NameThe person's name.Required.
OrganizationWhich organization they belong to.Optional — a contact can be unfiled ("No organization").
RoleTheir job title.Free text.
RelationshipHow they bear on your pursuits.Champion, Decision maker, Influencer, Gatekeeper, Blocker, or Not assessed.
Email / PhoneHow to reach them.Optional. Email must look like an email address.
Last contactedWhen someone last spoke to them.Shown on the workspace clock.
Buyer referenceLinks the contact to a public official in the state & local reference data.Set from the State & local → Who buys tab. See State and local government.
Private notesWhat your team knows about them.Private to the workspace; never in the audit trail.

Email a contact

Choose Email on a contact, or Email a contact on a pursuit, and pick one of Axis Capture's contracting templates. The merge fields — your company's name and identifiers, the solicitation, the agency — are shown before you send. Your workspace can reword each template under Settings → Email templates, where they are listed under Axis Capture.

After sending, Axis Capture shows what happened to each recipient:

  • Sent — the email went. Only a sent email is added to the contact's communication history and moves Last contacted.
  • Not sent — with the reason, such as the address being on your workspace's Do not email list, or the template being turned off.
  • Failed — the email could not be delivered. Nothing is logged; try again later.

Log an exchange

  1. Open the contact's communication history

    On the contact, choose Show communication history.

  2. Choose Log an exchange

    Pick the Kind — Call, Email, Meeting, Event or Note — and write a one-line Summary.

  3. Record what was said

    What was said is private to the workspace, never searchable, and never in the audit trail.

  4. Set when it happened

    Leave When it happened blank to use now. An exchange can't be logged more than a day ahead. The time is shown to everyone on the workspace clock, not each viewer's own.

  5. Save to history

    The exchange is added to the contact's history. The list shows the most recent exchanges; there is a cap on how many can be logged against one contact.

The relationship map

View relationships on an organization or contact opens the Relationship map: who you know there, what they are connected to, and what those pursuits became.

FieldWhat it doesAccepted values / default
Connected opportunitiesSolicitations this person or organization is connected to.Connect one with Connect to an opportunity and its solicitation id.
What these pursuits becameAwards the shared reference data already links to those opportunities.Shows the awarded company and value where known.
Open tasksFollow-ups attached to the organization or contact.See Documents, requirements and tasks.

If the shared reference data cannot be reached, connected opportunities and awards are left out and the map says so, rather than showing an empty map that looks complete.

Tasks on CRM records

Organizations and contacts accept tasks — "call the contracting officer before Friday" — just like pursuits and solicitations. They appear in the assignee's workspace task list. See Documents, requirements and tasks.

Common gotchas

  • "You already have an organization with that name." Organization names are unique within the workspace. Search for the existing record and add the contact to it.
  • "I can't edit a contact." Analysts, Proposal Managers, Standard and Read-Only Users can read the CRM but not change it. Ask an administrator for the Business Development or Manager role.
  • "I removed a contact and lost the history." Removal deletes the contact and its communication history. That is why only Managers and Capture Administrators can do it.

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