title: Is this the right way to associate models in a domain with multiple users per account?
body: <p>Using Rails and am new to it (and RDBMs). Have read lots of posts and articles on modeling and associations, but could really use a reality check on what I'm thinking for my particular case.</p>
  
  <p>I have 3 main models: users, accounts, plans. The accounts are multi-user, with plans worked on by all users attached to the account (with varying privileges). If the account is destroyed I’ll also take down its users and plans.</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Looks like the basic associations would be as follows. Is this correct?</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p><strong>users</strong></p>
  
  <p>belongs to - ><br>
  &lt; - has many</p>
  
  <p><strong>accounts</strong></p>
  
  <p>has many -><br>
  &lt;- belongs to</p>
  
  <p><strong>plans</strong>                                                </p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>Is there any value in associating users with plans with “has many through”? I see that it would allow access like @user.plans and @plan.user[1], but can’t I access each via accounts, as in @user.account.plan?</p></li>
  <li><p>Is it the case that with “has many through” the middle model simply belongs to the other two? All the examples I’ve seen show that. In my case, that would be inappropriate, since account actually owns the other two.</p></li>
  <li><p>Is there a better way to model this (multiple users of an organization working on a set of one or more plans)?</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Input is very much appreciated.</p>