Merging customer records in QuickBooks requires careful planning. After you identify the records you want to merge, designate one record as the "final" record and the others as records to be merged. If you track jobs with customers, you must merge job records before you can consolidate customer records. When a single individual or company has more than one role in QuickBooks, such as a vendor and a customer, you must maintain separate records. There is no "undo" function after you merge customer records, so make a backup of your QuickBooks database before you attempt any record consolidation.
Merging Jobs
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If you track jobs by customer in QuickBooks and the two customers you're joining have jobs assigned to them, you must first merge the jobs before you can merge the customers. In the Customer Center, click the "Customers & Jobs" tab. Double-click the final customer record and write down or copy the job name at the top of the window. Close that window, double-click the customer record to be merged, change the job name and click "OK." Select "Yes" to confirm you want to merge the jobs.
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Merging Customers
Merging customer records follows a process similar to merging job records. Double-click the final customer record and write down or copy the customer name exactly as it appears. Close that window, double-click the customer record to be merged, type or paste the customer name, click "OK" and then choose "Yes" to confirm that you want to merge the customer records.
Concurrent Roles
A customer and a vendor have different roles in QuickBooks. Customers are linked to sales receipts and accounts receivable. Vendors are linked to purchases you make and accounts payable. When an individual or company is both a customer and a vendor, you must maintain two accounts, one as a vendor and another as a customer. Because the customer and vendor cannot have the exact same name, you must devise a naming scheme, such as appending "_V" to the name of the vendor record and "_C" to the name of the customer record. You cannot combine a vendor record and a customer record or convert a customer record to a vendor or a vendor record to a customer.
Consolidating Three or More Records
You can only consolidate two customer records at a time. If you have a customer who has three or more records, you must combine two of the records and repeat the process to merge the combined record with the final customer record.