Person Account – Pros & Cons – Salesforce Contact Management

PERSON ACCOUNT: PROS

• Clear visual differentiation between a person account and business account (icon).
• All Person Account can be found on one record (no dummy account record needed).
• Volume is not an issue. We have implementation that support up to 6 million consumer records.
• There is a Clear delineation of consumer records regarding the integration with other systems that support consumers only.
• Clear delineation of consumer records regarding any CTI integrations.
• Simple data import with Contact fields using the Salesforce import wizard.
• Person Account information shows on both Account and Contact reports.
• Contact fields directly accessible via Apex through single Account instance.
• Person Accounts are supported by Salesforce 1.

PERSON ACCOUNT: CONS

• Person Accounts utilize higher amounts of data storage.
• Person Account can not be enabled as Partner or Customer User Account (https://ideas.salesforce.com/s/idea/a0B8W00000GdcxrUAB/make-partner-community-licenses-usable-for-person-accounts).
• You can’t disable them once you enable them.
• There are more logical ways to structure data. 
• Business Change or Upgrade.
• Limited Reporting and Search
• Person Accounts never get new features released to them
• Person Accounts Not Supported in Lightning Sync
• Person Accounts do not roll-up to Parent Accounts within the Account Hierarchy
• Added complexity to development. Any existing object formulas, assignment rules and workflows will need to be reviewed and updated.
• Some of the Apps in Appexchange do not support Person Account.
• Lead conversion is more complex. 
• When person accounts are enabled the contact sharing model is always “Controlled by Parent”.
• Community 360 does not work with Person Account.
• There are limited ways to add Person Account in Campaign: https://ideas.salesforce.com/s/idea/a0B8W00000GdlHaUAJ/adding-person-accounts-to-campaigns

Some other useful help Articles:

Person Account VS Business Account – An Essential Decision in Contact Management in Salesforce

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140507175728-96768874-5-reasons-to-avoid-person-accounts-in-salesforce-com/

https://cirriussolutions.com/salesforce-person-acconts