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Merging duplicate vendors and customers in QuickBooks
Merging duplicate vendors and customers in QuickBooks

Important steps for correctly merging vendors and customers in QuickBooks.

Ryan Marshall avatar
Written by Ryan Marshall
Updated over 5 years ago

Note: For the sake of brevity, we refer to QuickBooks vendors and contacts in this article collectively as contacts.

How duplicates occur in QuickBooks

Duplicates can create issues between Syngency and QuickBooks if not managed correctly. The two instances where you will encounter duplicates are:

  1. If you have existing contacts in your QuickBooks account prior to connecting it to Syngency, you will find that Syngency will create duplicates in QuickBooks if they are not named exactly the same.

  2. If a contact of the same name already exists, but it wasn't created by Syngency, you will receive the following blue "Response from QuickBooks" message:
    ​
    ​The name supplied already exists. Another customer, vendor, or employee is already using this name.
    ​
    ​    This means that a contact already exists with this name, but it wasn't the one which was created by Syngency. It's important that any contacts shared between QuickBooks and Syngency are ones created by Syngency.

Identifying the corresponding contacts in Syngency and QuickBooks


Merging the two contacts in QuickBooks will solve the issue, but it's important that this is done the right way by following this rule:

 Always merge into the contact which was created by Syngency.

How can you tell which contact this is? Go to the Accounts tab of any contact or talent in Syngency, and you'll find a "QuickBooks" field like this:

This is the ID of the contact in QuickBooks. If you click the arrow button next to the field, it will open the contact in QuickBooks, and you will see in your browser's address bar that it matches the number at the end of the QuickBooks URL:

This is the QuickBooks contact which you will want to merge any other duplicates into.

The merge process is very safe, and completely reversible, so don't worry if you don't get it right the first time – we'll help you undo the merge at the end of this article.

Merge correctly, and be duplicate-free forever

Once you have located the Syngency-created contact identified above, you will want to locate the other duplicate(s) in QuickBooks and open those contacts.

Search for them under either Sales > Customers or Expenses > Vendors in QuickBooks. Click on their name and then on the Edit button in the top-right corner of the page:

Next, in the Vendor or Customer Information window, find the Display Name:

Change this to the name of the Syngency-created contact. QuickBooks should do a typeahead search to help you find the right one:

Now click Save, and you will see the following message appear:

You can click Yes.
​
This will delete the contact you are currently viewing, and merge all details and transactions with the Syngency-created contact.

Now when you save the contact, talent, or booking in Syngency, you will no longer receive the QuickBooks error message.

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