Find and merge duplicate organisations

Duplicates creep in when two reps add the same company, or when a list is imported twice. They split the history of one customer across two records: half the calls on one, half the deals on the other. Duplicate review finds them and merges them into one record.

Before you start

You need the permission to merge organisations. Merging cannot be undone from the screen, so agree with the record owners before you merge.

Review the groups

1. Open CRM › Settings & Data › Duplicate Review.

You can also open it with Review duplicates on the organisations list.

The screen lists groups of organisations that share a tax number, commercial registration, name, phone or e-mail. Organisations that are customers are marked Is a customer. If nothing is found, the screen shows "No likely duplicates."

Merge a group

1. In the group, choose the record to Keep. When one of them is a customer it is chosen for you, because a prospect is merged into a customer, never the other way round.

2. Select Merge the others into the kept one.

3. Read the confirmation and confirm.

The other organisations' contacts, deals, activities and documents move to the kept record, together with their roles, addresses, child organisations and leads. The other records are archived with a note that they were merged. The screen shows Accounts merged.

Merge one record at a time

To merge a single organisation you have open, use Merge on its page and choose the organisation to keep. See organisations.

Avoid new duplicates

• When you add a customer or an organisation, the form lists similar records as you type. Use the existing one.

• A tax number or commercial registration that already belongs to another organisation is refused on save.

• Before an import, check the file against the customers list.

Common questions

Is a merged record deleted? No. It is archived and keeps a note saying which record it was merged into.

Two records share only a phone number. Should I merge them? Not always. Two branches of a group or two people at the same company can share a switchboard number. Merge only records that are the same organisation.