Entity data

An entity is any real-world organization that can appear as an account in your CRM. This includes commercial businesses, government bodies, educational institutions, and the sub-units within them, from holding companies and operating subsidiaries down to individual business units and physical establishments.

Every account in your CRM should map to exactly one entity. In practice, this rarely holds. The same entity appears multiple times (duplicates), different entities share the same record (conflated accounts), and some records don't map to any real entity at all (defunct or junk accounts).

Kernel's job is to resolve each CRM account to the correct real-world entity, assign it a unique KERN ID, classify it by type, and place it in the right position within a hierarchy.

What's included

Page	What it covers	Use it for
Core entity data	The resolved entity identity: name, legal name, website, country of incorporation, and KERN ID.	Understanding the basic identity fields Kernel returns for an account.
Entity categories	Entity category and sub-category, including Company, Government, Education, and their sub-types.	Understanding what kind of organization an account represents.
LinkedIn URL	How Kernel matches an entity to the appropriate LinkedIn company page.	Understanding LinkedIn URL matching, match type, and reasoning.

Entity data is the identity layer. Firmographics such as headcount, revenue, location, and operational status live under Firmographics. Parent and subsidiary relationships live under Hierarchies.

Why entity definitions matter

Consistent entity definitions are the foundation for every downstream operation:

• Deduplication - You can only identify duplicates if you know what constitutes "the same entity."

• Hierarchy mapping - Parent-child relationships depend on clear entity boundaries.

• Enrichment - Firmographic data must be attributed to the right entity, not a parent when you mean a subsidiary.

• Territory assignment - Reps need to know whether an account represents the right real-world organization for their book of business.

Start with Core entity data, then use Entity categories, LinkedIn URL, and Hierarchies to understand the surrounding context.