Introduction
Sometimes the same customer ends up in the app twice — once typed in at the desk, once created by a booking from the website, or simply entered again by a colleague who did not search first. Merging folds the two records into one. You open the record you want to keep, click Merge customer, and choose the record that should disappear. A small popup headed Klant samenvoegen (Dutch for "merge customer") holds one drop-down, labelled Dissapearing customer (the app's own spelling), and a Merge button.
The bookings and invoices of the disappearing record move to the one you keep, and the disappearing record is archived: it drops out of the customer list and out of every customer drop-down. Some things do not move with it — see What a merge leaves behind below before you start.
You will use this when:
- a customer booked online and now has a second record next to the one you already had
- two colleagues each created the same business customer, and invoices are split between them
- the app warned you that another customer already uses this email address
- a blacklisted person got through because they were booked under a second record
- you are tidying the customer list and find the same name twice
Words used on this screen
| The screen says | It means |
|---|---|
| Merge customer | The link on the customer form that opens the merge popup |
| Dissapearing customer | The duplicate record that will be archived. The customer whose form you opened is the one that stays |
| Archived | Hidden from the customer list and from every place where you pick a customer. The record still exists |
| Linked employees/subdivisions | The tab listing the contacts at a business customer |
Every way to do this task
The only merge the model scan found starts from the Merge customer link on the customer form, described below. There is no merge from the customer list itself.
Use this page when two records are really the same person or business. If they are two different people who share an address or phone number, leave both records alone.
How to use
Configuration
There is nothing to set up. The merge has no settings.
Before you start: merging needs a company administrator account. Anyone can open the popup, but without that account there is no Merge button in it. Decide first which record to keep: open the form of that record, not the duplicate. The record you keep does not receive any details from the duplicate — not the email, phone number, address, licence, passport or bank details — so type anything missing into the kept record before you merge, while you can still see the duplicate.
Using the merge
From the main menu open Customers, then click the Customers tile. Search the list headed Customer for the record you want to keep, and click its row to open the form.
- Look at both records first. Open the duplicate as well, check its Identification, Financial and Core tabs, and copy anything the kept record lacks into the kept record. Click Save on the kept record.
- On the kept record's form, click the Other tab. Near the bottom, below Sync to Mollie and Mollie customer id, click Merge customer.
- In the popup Klant samenvoegen — which says Select the dissapearing customer and Warning: this can't be undone — open the Dissapearing customer drop-down and choose the duplicate. The drop-down shows each customer's quick lookup name. It lists only your own company's customers, leaves out the customer you are merging into, and leaves out customers already archived.
- Click Merge. The app asks Warning: this can't be undone. Are you sure? Click Proceed to merge, or Cancel to stop without changing anything.
- When the message Customer merged succesfully! appears, close the popup with the cross in its corner, then close and reopen the kept customer's form so its tabs show the moved bookings and invoices.
The merge happens the moment you click Proceed. There is no Save step and no way back: the popup has no undo, and the archived record cannot be found again from the customer list.
Key details
What moves to the record you keep, and what stays behind. Skim this table once; you will come back to single rows as they matter:
| Moves to the kept record | Stays on the archived duplicate |
|---|---|
| All of the duplicate's bookings and quotes, with their rental agreements | Its own details: name, email, phone, address |
| All of the duplicate's invoices | Its driving licence and passport (Identification tab) |
| Drivers attached to it on Linked subaccounts/drivers | Its bank details and payment terms (Financial tab) |
| Direct-debit mandates signed through Twikey, an outside direct-debit service | Its link to Mollie, the online payment service |
| Bookings where the duplicate was an extra driver: the kept record becomes the driver | Payments on the duplicate's own bookings: each payment still names the duplicate as its customer |
| A booking where the duplicate was the contact person | Its contacts on Linked employees/subdivisions — see below |
| Businesses the duplicate works for, and accounts it drives for (its own Linked accounts tab) | |
| Email opt-outs recorded on the duplicate |
Contacts at a business customer do not move. If the duplicate is a business with people on its Linked employees/subdivisions tab, those people stay linked to the archived record. After the merge, the kept business shows only its own contacts, and the missing ones no longer appear when you pick a contact person on a booking. The people themselves are not lost — they are still ordinary customers in the list. Link each one again from the kept business: open its Linked employees/subdivisions tab and use Existing account, as described in Add extra drivers and company contacts.
The same applies the other way round: if the duplicate was itself a contact or driver for another customer, that link stays with the archived record. Re-link the kept record from the other customer's tab.
A worked example. Jan de Vries has record 1042, created at the desk last year, with his licence, bank details and three past bookings. Last week he booked online, which created record 1107 with the same email, one booking and one invoice of €250.00, and he paid a €100.00 deposit online on that booking. You open 1042, click Other, then Merge customer, pick 1107 and click Merge, then Proceed. Afterwards 1042 holds four bookings and the €250.00 invoice. Record 1107 is archived. The €100.00 payment is still attached to the booking that moved, but the payment itself still names 1107 as the customer. 1042 keeps its own licence and bank details; if 1107 had held the only licence scan, it would now sit on the archived record.
Nothing is sent to the customer. The merge sends no email and does not send any invoice again.
What to do next: open the kept record's Linked employees/subdivisions tab and re-link any contacts the duplicate had. Then check the Identification tab, because the kept record's licence is the one the app checks from now on — see Record a customer's driving licence and passport.
Q&A
Why is a payment still in the name of a customer I merged away? Payments on the duplicate's own bookings keep the duplicate as their customer; only the booking moves. The money still counts against the booking. If you need the payment in the kept customer's name, ask your administrator.
Why does a payment made by one customer now show another customer's name? If the duplicate was an extra driver on someone else's booking, the merge puts the kept record on that booking as the driver — and also renames every payment on that booking to the kept record, even payments the booking's own customer made. Check the payments on such bookings after a merge and ask your administrator to correct any that now name the wrong person.
I merged the wrong way round. Can I undo it? No. The confirmation says it cannot be undone, and there is no button that reverses it. The archived record still exists but does not appear in the customer list, so you cannot open it again from there. Ask your administrator; in the meantime, correct the kept record's details by hand.
Why did the duplicate's licence, address or bank details not come across? They never do. Each customer keeps its own. Type them into the kept record — see Record a customer's driving licence and passport, Enter and correct a customer's address and Set a customer's payment and invoicing terms.
Why did contacts disappear from a business customer after a merge? They were on the duplicate's Linked employees/subdivisions tab and stayed with the archived record. Link them again with Existing account on the kept business's tab; see Add extra drivers and company contacts.
Why is the kept customer suddenly marked Blocked? Opening a customer form ticks Blocked by itself when the customer is over their credit limit — which the bookings and invoices that moved across can push them over — or when their licence number is on the blacklist. See Check what a customer owes and take a payment and Blacklist a customer's driving licence.
Why is there no Merge button in the popup? Your account is not a company administrator account. Ask your administrator to do the merge.
Why is the customer I want to merge away missing from the drop-down? It is either the customer whose form you opened, or it is already archived, or it belongs to another company. Check that you opened the record you want to keep, not the duplicate.
Why can I not find a customer I know exists? It was most likely merged away. Archived customers do not appear in the customer list. Search for the other record — the one it was merged into — which now holds its bookings and invoices.
Why do I not see the moved bookings on the kept record straight away? The form you had open does not refresh itself. Close it and open the customer again.
Related pages: Create a customer record for the duplicate-email warning that often reveals a second record, Add extra drivers and company contacts for re-linking contacts after a merge, and Screen a customer before renting for the checks that run on the kept record.