Why Am I Getting Duplicate Customers When Integrating SAGE and QuickBooks?

Question: I am integrating SAGE Online with QuickBooks Premier. I am getting duplicate customers and vendors. Why is that happening?

Answer: When integrating two software packages, if any data in the receiving system is not identical to that being exported, it will be identified as a new and different entry.

For instance, if you have a customer set up in QuickBooks as “ABC Company,” and in SAGE Online (or any other system) the customer is labeled as ABC Company, Inc, a second company of ABC Company, Inc will be created in QuickBooks when the data from SAGE is imported into QuickBooks.

One solution is to synchronize one list to the other so that the lists in both systems are identical, but that can be a massive amount of work. The other way is to merge the dual records in QB.

In the above example, for instance, I would want the QuickBooks customer to be “ABC Company, Inc” because that’s what it is in SAGE. I will be writing additional orders in SAGE for this customer (we hope), so that name will be brought into QuickBooks again.

To merge the records, edit the customer “ABC Company,” change it to “ABC Company, Inc,” and save the change. QuickBooks will not permit the same identical name to be in lists twice. You will get a warning that the name already exists, and you will be asked if you want to merge the records. If you answer “yes,” the name will be changed, all the history of both names (ABC Company and ABC Company, Inc) will be merged, and you will be left with only “ABC Company, Inc.” Be careful with merging records, however. Once merged, you cannot undo the merge.

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