Documentation/ Master records and catalogues/ Merging duplicate suppliers
Merging duplicate suppliers
When the same supplier has two or more records, their documents are split between them and no report gives the real figure. Merging joins them: the documents are moved to the master record and the others are deleted.
Database › Supplier master › tick two or more › Merge
On this page
Why they duplicate
Records create themselves from the documents you receive. The identifying value varying is enough for a second one to be born:
- The tax number is read with one character different on a poor-quality document.
- The supplier changes its registered or trading name.
- Documents arrive from the head office and from a branch with different references.
- Somebody created the record by hand when it already existed.
How to find the duplicates
Two ways, depending on the volume:
- On screen, searching on the first few letters of the name. Duplicates come up next to each other and you just tick them.
- From the Excel export, sorting by tax number and by name. That is the sensible way once the master has a few hundred records.
One useful hint: suppliers with few documents and incomplete details are usually duplicates of another one that is complete.
Step 1: go over the list
The first step shows the suppliers you ticked, with their tax number, trading name, reference and practice client where they have one, and lets you take out any that do not belong.
This is the moment to be sure it really is the same company. Two different companies in the same group are not duplicates: each has its own tax number and its own accounts.
Step 2: pick the master
The second step asks which record is being kept. The screen explains the effect: the master supplier keeps all its data, and the other suppliers' documents are moved to it.
Each candidate is shown with its nominal account, which helps you decide: you want to keep the record that already has its accounts and terms set.
Step 3: confirm
The summary shows the master record, the list of the ones about to be deleted with a count, and the warning:
This moves every document from the duplicate suppliers to the master supplier and deletes the duplicates. It cannot be undone.
The documents are neither lost nor changed in content: they change owner. After merging, the whole buying history with that supplier sits under one record.
How this differs from merging products
The two look alike, but they do not reach as far as each other:
| Suppliers | Products | |
|---|---|---|
| What gets moved | Whole documents | Document lines |
| What gets overwritten | Nothing in the document's content | Five fields on each line: description, code, units, agreed price and converter |
| Risk of losing information | Low | Middling: the lines change description |
Which is why merging suppliers is a relatively safe thing to do, and merging products wants more care over which one is the master.
How to stop it happening again
- Fill the tax number in on every record. It is what an incoming document's issuer is recognised by.
- Go over the new suppliers now and then: a duplicate caught with three documents is far easier to fix than one with three hundred.
- Use the supplier correction when the problem is in the reading: it creates a rule that puts that issuer's future documents right, instead of producing yet another record. How it works is in The supplier comes out wrong or duplicated.
- Import with the tax number when you load suppliers from Excel, so the ones already there are recognised.
Things that come up
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The Merge button is off | Fewer than two suppliers are ticked. | Tick at least two. |
| It will not let you get to step 3 | No master record has been chosen. | Click the supplier that should be kept. |
| After merging, the payment terms are missing | The record you chose as master did not have them. | Fill them in on the record you ended up with. |
| Two different companies got merged | They were ticked because the names looked alike. | There is no undo. Create the separate record again and move its documents. |
| Duplicates come back before long | That supplier's reference is read wrongly every time. | Apply a supplier correction rule on their documents. |