Documentation/ Working with documents/ Duplicates and merging
Duplicates and documents waiting to be merged
Two notices that look alike and mean opposite things. One says a document came in twice; the other says one document came in broken into pieces. The first is settled by deleting, the second by merging.
On this page
How they differ
| Duplicate document | Waiting to be merged | |
|---|---|---|
| What was spotted | Another document with identical values. | The same document with different totals. |
| What it means | The document came in twice. | A document of several pages came in split. |
| What to do | Keep one and delete the other. | Merge the parts into one document. |
| Can you undo it | No: deleting is final. | Yes: a merged document can be split. |
The amounts are the giveaway. If both records carry the same totals, it is the same invoice twice. If the totals differ, they are different parts of one invoice, each carrying whatever total it happened to read.
Duplicate document
The notice says another document with identical values has been found. Neither is deleted for you: the decision is yours, because there are perfectly legitimate cases where two documents match.
What to do:
- Find the other record, filtering by supplier and document number.
- Compare the upload date and the source of each.
- Keep the one that is complete or better coded, and delete the other.
Deleting a document does not give the allowance back. Avoiding the double upload saves your plan; deleting the duplicate does not.
Waiting to be merged
This notice says the same document has been spotted with different totals: the classic case of an invoice of several pages whose pages came in as separate documents.
Merging settles it. Two ways:
- Merge selected, ticking the parts yourself. It needs at least two.
- Head it off at upload, by leaving auto-merge on, which it is by default.
It can be undone: a merged document can be split later and its parts come back.
The Source column
Documents identified as duplicates show a source of Duplicate in the list. It is a quick way to gather them: filter on that source and you have every case still to decide.
False alarms
Two genuinely different documents can be flagged as duplicates because their values coincide. It happens with, say, delivery notes from the same supplier, the same date and the same amount.
When in doubt, the check that settles it is the document number and the original file, both reachable from each record. If the numbers differ they are different documents and you keep both: the notice is a warning, not a verdict, and it does not stop you approving or sending.
How duplicates get created
| How it happens | How to stop it |
|---|---|
| The supplier sends the same invoice by email and on paper | Settle on one route per supplier. |
| Two people upload the same batch | Split the uploading by supplier or by period. |
| An upload is repeated after what looked like a failure | Check the list before repeating: it may well have gone through. |
| The connected mailbox reprocesses a message | Go over the email connection's settings. |