Smartsheet as CRM with differentiated Accounts, Contacts, and Tasks

Hi everyone!

I am trying to use Smartsheet as a simple but complete sales/CRM solution.

I want to be able to have three different things:

Accounts (like a company, "XYZ Tractors")

Contacts (like a person, "John Smith, Senior Manager, employee at XYZ Tractors”)

Tasks (“Create a sales quote for John”)

In Smartsheet, there is no way that I know of to differentiate between rows (row 15 is an account, row 16 and 17 under that are contacts within that account, row 18,19,20 are all tasks related to that account, etc.) Right now I have two separate sheets, one for accounts and one for tasks, and I have duplicate contacts in each of them (over 400!) and am managing that way, but it does not work very well.

For one, I have to create duplicate rows every time I add a new contact in two different sheets which can create user error and having the two sheets not be “in sync” with each other. Also, in the contacts sheet I have many columns that are specific for contact info (email address, phone number, etc.) but also columns that should be in both sheets (like market segment, lead source, assigned sales manager, assigned customer support manager, etc.)

I think this gives a good overview of my goals and issues, can anyone help me create a solution that would solve my needs? Otherwise, I will need to work with a CRM specific application like Salesforce which does all what I need natively, but then still keep Smartsheet for project-management of non-sales tasks, which is not an elegant or cheap solution.

Best, Chris