Here's how to merge customers and vendors in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
The following procedure is based on a customer card. The steps are similar for a vendor and contact cards.
Choose the icon, enter Customers, and then choose the related link.
On the Customer Card page, select Actions, Functions and then choose the Merge With action.
On the Merge Duplicate page, in the Merge With field, select the customer that you believe is a duplicate of the one you have opened, indicated in the Current field.
The FieldsFastTab lists fields where the values are different for the two customers. This means that if the selected customer is really a duplicate, then only very few fields should be listed, such as typing errors and other data entry mistakes.
The Related Tables FastTab lists tables where there are fields with a relation to both customers.
The Current Count and Duplicate Count fields show the number of fields in related tables where the No. value of both the current and the duplicate customer is used.
On the Merge Duplicate page, this section is informational only, however, if merge conflicts exist, you will resolve them on the Merge Duplicate Conflicts page, which we will go into later in this post.
For each field where you want to use another value than the current one, select the Override check box.
The value in the Alternate Value field will then be transferred to the current record when you complete the process.
When you have finished selecting which values to keep or override, choose the Merge action.
The system checks if the merge of values for the duplicate customer into the current customer causes any conflicts. A conflict exists if a value in at least one primary-key field is the same for both customers while the value in the No field is different for the two customers.
If no conflicts are found, choose the Yes button in the confirmation message box.
The duplicate customer is renamed so that all usage of its No. value in all fields with relations to the customer table will be replaced with the No. value of the current customer.
If conflicts exist, choose the Resolve (xx) conflicts before merge. action on the Conflicts FastTab, which will appear if conflicts exist.
On the Merge Duplicate Conflicts page, select the line for a related table with a conflict, and then choose the View Details action.
The Merge Duplicate page now shows the fields in the selected table that cause a merge conflict between the two customer records. Notice in both the summarized values in the Current and Conflicts With fields and on the lines that at least one primary-key field is the same for both customers and the value of the No. field is different for the two customers.
If you do not want to keep the duplicate customer record, choose the Remove Duplicate action, and then choose the Close button.
Identical field values, other than the value in the No. field, are removed from the duplicate record and inserted on the current record.
If you want to keep the duplicate customer record after the merge, choose the Rename Duplicate.
On lines, not for the No. field, where the field has the same value on both records, change the value in the Alternate Value field, and then choose the Close button.
The conflicting field value is updated on the duplicate record so that it can be merged with the current record. The duplicate record continues to exist after the merge.
Repeat these steps until all conflicts are resolved. The Conflicts FastTab disappears.
On the Merge Duplicate page, choose the Merge action again, and then select the Yes button in the confirmation message box.
For a step-by-step guide on merging customers and vendors, check out our video tutorial below:
Training Video: How to Merge Customers and Vendors in D365 Business Central
Get in touch with the Kwixand Solutions team if you have any questions about this topic or any other Dynamics 365 related enquiry. For more Business Central training videos, don't forget to subscribe to our Youtube channel