Documentation/ Master records and catalogues/ Merging duplicate products
Merging duplicate products
The same item can get into the master several times because it arrived under different descriptions. Merging joins them into one: the document lines are moved to the master product and the duplicates are deleted.
Database › Product master › tick two or more › Merge
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Why duplicates appear
Products create themselves from the lines on your documents. The description changing between one document and the next is enough to produce a new record:
- The supplier abbreviates differently: OLIVE OIL 5L and OL. OIL 5 L.
- Their layout changes and the reading picks the description up with a different cut.
- The same item arrives from two different suppliers, each with their own naming.
What it costs you to leave them is not tidiness: it is analysis. That item's spend is split across several records, and no report gives you the real figure.
Step 1: go over the list
The first step shows the products you ticked and lets you take out of the list any that slipped in. The screen puts it this way: these products will be merged into one, and you can remove any of them if you want.
This is the moment to check they really are all the same item. Two different sizes of the same product, the five litre and the one litre, are not duplicates: merging them destroys the price-per-unit information.
Step 2: pick the master
The second step asks which of them is the good one. The application explains what that means: the master product keeps all its data, and the document lines that pointed at the others are moved to the master and take on its fields, description, code, units, agreed price and converter.
The one you pick is marked as master. You cannot go on without choosing: the application says so.
Step 3: confirm
The third step summarises it: the master product at the top, and below it the list of the ones about to go, with a count. Plus a warning worth reading all the way through:
This moves every document line from the duplicates to the master product, overwriting the description, the code, the units, the agreed price and the converter on those lines. It then deletes the duplicates. It cannot be undone.
When you confirm, the result comes back with numbers: how many lines were moved and how many products were deleted.
What gets overwritten on the lines
This is the part that catches people out: merging does not just change which product the line points at. The lines affected take on five fields from the master:
| Field on the line | What happens |
|---|---|
| Description | Becomes the master product's. |
| Code | Becomes the master's. |
| Units | Taken from the master. |
| Agreed price | Taken from the master. |
| Converter | Taken from the master. |
The lines' quantities and amounts are not touched: your spend history is kept. What changes is how those lines are described.
Which has a practical consequence: an old document will stop showing the exact description the supplier printed and show the master's instead. If that literal fidelity matters to your archive, weigh it up before merging.
How to pick the master well
Because the master's five fields spread outwards, pick the one that is most complete, not the oldest or the one that turns up most. In this order:
- The one with an ERP reference code. Without it, every line ends up with no code.
- The one with the clearest, most stable description, because that is what will be seen everywhere.
- The one with units and converter properly set.
- The one with categories assigned.
If none of them is complete, the efficient thing is to finish one of them off first and merge afterwards.
Things that come up
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The Merge button is off | Fewer than two products are ticked. | Tick at least two. |
| It will not let you past step 2 | No master product has been chosen. | Click the product that should be kept. |
| After merging, old lines changed description | That is what should happen: they take the master's. | Not a fault. Quantities and amounts are kept. |
| Two different sizes of the same item got merged | They were not duplicates. | There is no undo. Create the separate product again and correct the lines affected. |
| The lines ended up with no reference code | The master you chose did not have one. | Set it on the master's record and go over the lines waiting to be sent. |