Managing financial-related functions in the business is quite challenging and time-consuming. A software named Quicken was introduced as a personal finance management application in the U.S. It helps individuals manage and track accounts, expenses, budgets, etc. However, it was not able to maintain a two-sided accounting entry. Due to this drawback, a new accounting tool, QuickBooks was introduced in 1992 by Intuit company and is the most popular application. In this blog, we learn one of the widely used features of how to merge customers in QuickBooks. Let’s get started!
What is Customer Merging in QuickBooks & Why It’s Needed?
Many people have this question about how to merge customers in Quickbooks, and how QBO merging customers will help us. First, we should know what merging is. The data that comprises all information and is moved from one account to another to join them is considered as merging. It is used to integrate customers in QuickBooks. Merging is done to remove or merge duplicates that are mistakenly entered twice or with different names. It helps to improve the productivity and accuracy of your financial records.
Benefits to Merge Customers in Quickbooks
There are some benefits of merging customers in Quickbooks, these are as follows:-
- It removes duplicate copies or makes them inactive.
- It makes bookkeeping much easier.
- By removing duplicate entries, it gives you an accurate list.
- You can combine or consolidate multiple customer profiles in your company.
- Apart from customers, you can merge double copies of vendors, accounts, and clients.
What Should You Do Before Merging?
Some key points you need to follow before merging any accounts, and customers.
- There is no option to undo a merge because the profile gets merged permanently. So it is required to back up the Company’s file in QuickBooks Desktop for Windows.
- Change your Company file to Single User mode.
- Clear changes related to the pending accountant.
- For Windows, make sure to turn off multicurrency in the QuickBooks.
- It cannot merge those accounts which are linked to online banking.
- If you want to merge vendors then you should keep these things in consideration, otherwise, it will not merge if they are Tax authorities, Direct deposit vendors, Tax exempt, and paid through online banking.
How to Merge Customers in QuickBooks?
For business growth, it is important to manage and track your customers. Before starting to merge customers in Quickbooks, you should check whether customers have sub-customers that are linked with parent customers or not. If it is, then convert it to regular customers before getting merged.
Steps for Deleting the Payment or Deposit against the Customer Before Merging
First, you need to delete the payments of customers and then move to the merging process.
- Open your Quickbooks and click on the Charts of Accounts.
- Click Account and then hit the Deposit for deleting option.
- Press the Edit tab and then the Delete line.
Once the process of deleting the deposit against the customer is completed, pursue the steps to manage customers in Quickbooks.
Steps to Merge Customers in Quickbooks
Follow the procedure for integrating customers in Quickbooks:
- Open your QuickBooks accounts.
- Click on the name of the customer with whom you want to merge.
- Before merging, select the job as a parent customer and fill in the Name of the job.
- To change the customer’s name with the new name, tap the Edit Customer button.
- Proceed by clicking the button Yes.
After merging you need to regenerate the deleted payments.
- Click on the Receive payment from the Customer Option.
- Choose the customer and mark it on the invoice.
- Now select Payment Mode.
Steps to Merge Duplicate Customers in Quickbooks Desktop
If there are duplicate customers, merging is the best option to remove redundant copies. There is an option in QuickBooks that facilitates merging duplicate profiles of customers. One profile gets deleted and existing data is moved into your saved profile.
- First, go to the Sales option and select Customers.
- Now open and select the customer profile that you want to discard.
- Click the option Edit. This will allow you to make changes to the customer profile.
- You will see the Customer display name field. Now enter the duplicate customer profile’s name that you want to keep. Make sure you enter the same name.
- Press on the option Save. It will save whatever changes you have made.
- Now it will ask if you want to merge the two profiles, then select the option Yes. After clicking, it will merge your profile.
Steps to Merge Chart of Accounts in QuickBooks
- Firstly, navigate to the Charts of Accounts option.
- You need to go to the right side of the account and choose the Edit option.
- Then, create a copy of the account name that you want to keep.
- To merge the accounts, you need to first go back to the chart of accounts and then right-click on the account you want.
- The account name needs to be copied over the old account that you want to remove.
- After that, you must select Save and Close.
- “This name is already being used” is now shown on your computer. Do you want to combine them?
- Then, to merge the accounts, you must select the Yes option.
Steps to Merge Duplicate Vendors in QuickBooks Online
- Select the Vendors tab from the Expenses menu.
- You can search for the vendor name you want to keep there.
- Upon selecting the name, click on Edit.
- Go back to the Vendors tab after filling in the Company and Display names.
- Find the vendor that you want to cut off and open it. Then, select Edit.
- Alter the display name and company to exactly match the vendor profile you’re keeping.
- To confirm, click Save then Yes.
Steps to Merge Duplicate Accounts in QuickBooks
- Before reconciling the accounts, save the reconciliation reports. The transaction will still be reconciled and on the consolidated account.
- Select the Chart of Accounts option after opening Settings.
- Search for the account you’d like to keep. Select the dropdown in the Action column, and then select Edit.
- Notice the name of the account and type of detail.
- Identify the parent account to which the Is sub-account option belongs.
Now keep your account information secure and manage the account duplicate.
- Go back to the chart of accounts (I’ll show you how).
- Find the duplicate account you wish to eliminate. Then, select Edit from the dropdown list in the Action column.
- Change the account name and detail type to match the information of the account you want to save. Keep this in mind if you have to make a subaccount:
- If you are merging two parent accounts, ensure that neither of them has any subaccounts.
- Ensure the two subaccounts you are merging have the same parent account.
- If only one is a subaccount, convert it into a parent account by altering the Account Type to exactly copy the other parent account.
- Select Save and then Yes.
Conclusion
QuickBooks gives access to a business person to maintain and record a company’s transactions. However, sometimes the customer’s details are entered twice or other than their real name. So, there is a merge option in QuickBooks which is a good way to remove such duplicate entries of the customers. By using this option users can merge clients/vendors in QuickBooks online and desktop.
We hope this blog will clarify how to merge customers in QuickBooks by following the above steps. Merging should be carefully performed because it is permanently done and there is no undo option. If you require any assistance you can visit the Quickbooks tool hub.
Read More Related Articles:
