The Salesforce Lead — an unqualified prospect, before it's converted into an account, contact, and opportunity — has standard fields for capturing and qualifying interest. The fields are straightforward; conversion is where the gotchas live. This covers both, and the full standard-field reference has the table across the core objects.
Capture and qualify
Name(Name, compound) — a compound overSalutation,FirstName,LastName(withLastNamerequired), same as Contact.Company(Text) — required on Lead (a lead without a company doesn't convert cleanly). This is a real difference from Contact, which has no Company field.Status(Picklist) — where the lead sits in qualification.LeadSource(Picklist),Rating(Picklist),Industry(Picklist) — qualification context.Email(Email),Phone(Phone),Title(Text) — the contact details.
Ownership: user or queue
OwnerId(Lookup to User or Queue) — unlike most objects, a lead's owner can be a queue, not just a user. That's what powers lead queues and round-robin assignment. If you're building automation, don't assume the owner is a person.
Conversion — where data quietly disappears
IsConverted(Checkbox, read-only) — set by Salesforce when the lead is converted. You don't set it directly.ConvertedAccountId,ConvertedContactId,ConvertedOpportunityId(Lookups, read-only) — the records created (or matched) during conversion. These are populated by the conversion process.
Here's the gotcha that loses data: when a lead converts, its standard fields map to the new Account/Contact/Opportunity automatically, but custom Lead fields only carry over if you configure lead field mapping (Setup → Object Manager → Lead → Fields & Relationships → Map Lead Fields). Skip that, and the custom fields your forms and reps filled in are simply dropped at conversion. It's one of the most common "where did that data go" moments in Salesforce.
The honest catch — mapping is invisible until it bites
The mapping gotcha is a perfect example of why a reference isn't enough: knowing lead fields map on conversion doesn't tell you whether your custom Lead fields are actually mapped, or which ones are silently unmapped and losing data. That's a question about your specific org.
SchemaForce inventories every field on Lead (standard and custom), describes each, and — with impact analysis — shows you what references a field, so the custom fields riding on conversion are visible rather than assumed. Your org's real Lead object, documented, instead of found out the hard way.
