The Merge Contacts and Entities screen allows you to merge contacts in your account, however, it is dependent on the type of QuickBooks account you have.
Below, we will cover the following topics, pointing out differences between QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online.
If you do not know the difference between a contact and a customer, please see our article, "What is a Contact?"
Supported Merges
If you are on QuickBooks Online, you can only:
Merge two contacts of the same lead, customer, or vendor.
Merge two customer leads (but not merge customers).
Merge two vendor leads (but not merge vendors).
Merge a customer lead to a customer.
Merge a vendor lead to a vendor.
If you are on QuickBooks Desktop, you can only:
Merge two contacts of the same lead, customer, or vendor.
Merge two customers (as well as customer leads).
Merge two vendors (as well as vendor leads).
Merge a customer lead to a customer.
Merge a vendor lead to a vendor
Change the Main Contact for a customer or a vendor if they have more than one contact.
Merge Details
For any merge, the following rules will apply:
A merge cannot be undone.
All records and details across all apps related with the From Record will be moved to the To Record. After this, From Record will be deleted from Method.
Field-level merge: When merging From Record into To Record, blank fields in To Record will be populated by From Record's values. Fields already populated in To Record are kept and From Record's values for those fields are lost.
Entity / Main Contact coupling: Because updating an entity's name or email in Method immediately updates the main contact tied to that entity, a merge between two entities, or an entity and a lead, will update blank fields in the contact. So if Customer B (To Record) has a blank email but the merged Customer A (From Record) has an email, the merged Customer A's email lands on the kept Customer B's main contact.
Entities with different contacts: When merging entities, their associated contacts are matched on email first, then name. A match means the two contacts are merged. No match means the contact is transferred as an additional contact.
Best practice: When doing a merge, keep contact names and emails unique if you wish to keep those contacts.
QuickBooks Desktop Merge Restrictions
If you are QuickBooks Desktop, there are restrictions on merging.
QuickBooks Desktop must be in single-user mode in order to merge entities in QuickBooks Desktop. Otherwise, a sync conflict will generate until single-user mode is enabled.
When merging customers, the sync must be connected and the two customers to be merged must be fully synced.
When merging customers, if both customers each have an estimate, QuickBooks Desktop will block the merge. QuickBooks Desktop does not allow customers with estimates to be merged. As long as one of them does not have any estimates, then the merge will complete.
Although not a restriction, for Customer to Customer merges, activities are moved asynchronously after the main merge completes. In other words, activities may not appear right away after a merge between two customers.
Note: Although the above refers to Customers, the same restrictions applies to Vendors.
Quickly Accessing the Merge Screen
There are a number of ways to access the screen to merge your contacts, and the instructions after this section detail how to navigate to it if you are viewing a contact.
However, to find this screen quickly, select the vertical ellipsis [⋮] on the Customers & Leads App, and then select "Merge Contacts & ...":
How to Merge a Contact
Please note the following before you merge a contact:
A merge cannot be undone.
Contacts must belong to the same customer, or vendor.
All records and details across all apps related with 'From Contact' will be moved to 'To Contact'.
'From Contact' will be deleted from Method.
A contact that is the Main Contact cannot be the 'From Contact'.
Normally, contacts are not synced with QuickBooks, however, the Main Contact is synced when using QuickBooks Desktop. Any merge done to the Main Contact will automatically sync it to QuickBooks Desktop.
To merge a contact:
Select the Customers & Leads App, find the contact you wish to merge, and click it.
Expand the Edit [
∨] button beside Contact Details, and select Merge Contact. Remember, you cannot merge a Main contact.
This will take you to the screen Merge Contacts and Entities. The Merge Contacts option will already be selected for you, as will the From (Merge) contact. Select the contact you wish to merge into within the dropdown To (Keep).
Click Merge to merge the From (Merge) contact into the To (Keep) contact. Remember, the From (Merge) contact will be deleted.
Click OK to confirm the Merge.
Click OK, and you're done! The contact will be successfully merged.
How to Merge an Entity (Customer or Vendor)
An Entity refers to leads, customers, or vendors. Merging two leads together, or two customers together, or two vendors together are all very similar. The below example will merge two customer leads, but it is the same process for customers and vendors.
Please note the following when merging an entity:
A merge cannot be undone.
All records and details across all apps related with 'From Entity' will be moved to 'To Entity'.
You cannot merge two entities of different types. So only a customer can be merged to another customer. You cannot merge a customer into a vendor.
For QuickBooks Desktop, you can merge an entity with their lead type. So you can merge a customer lead with a customer.
'From Entity' will be deleted from Method. If you are using QuickBooks Desktop, then the From Entity will also be deleted from QuickBooks Desktop.
For those using QuickBooks Desktop, accounting data will be synced to QuickBooks automatically.
For those using QuickBooks Desktop, you must be in single-user mode in order to merge entities. Otherwise, you will get a sync-conflict until single-user mode is enabled.
To merge an entity:
Select the Customers & Leads App, find the contact you wish to merge, and click it.
Expand the Edit [
∨] button beside Customer Lead Details, and select Merge Customer Lead.
This will take you to the screen Merge Contacts and Entities. The Merge Customer Leads option will already be selected for you, as will the From (Merge) customer lead. Select the customer lead you wish to merge into within the dropdown To (Keep).
Click Merge to merge the From (Merge) contact into the To (Keep) customer. Remember, From Customer Lead (Merge) will be deleted.
Click OK to confirm the merge.
The customer lead will be successfully merged.
How to Change the Main Contact
This section is only for QuickBooks Desktop users. When a customer is created in QuickBooks Desktop, a contact is automatically created in QuickBooks and Method. This contact is the Main Contact and is the only contact that syncs with QuickBooks Desktop. All other contacts created in Method will not sync to QuickBooks.
In the case the main contact leaves, you may want to assign the Main Contact type to another contact. When using this tool, remember:
This will only swap the contact type, so no associated records will be affected.
The new Main Contact will automatically sync to QuickBooks.
To make a contact the main contact:
Select the Customers & Leads App, find the contact you wish to merge, and click it. You need to choose the contact that is not currently the main contact.
Expand the Edit [
∨] button beside Contact Details, and select Make Main Contact.
The following prompt will show. Validate you have chosen the correct contacts. When ready, click the OK button to continue.
And you're done! The contact will be updated as the main contact.
