How to Merge Customers
Nike
Member Posts: 3
I accidentally created the same customer twice (with variations in the name) and I've already billed them and received payments using both customer names. Is there a way to merge these customers? Or do I need to manually recreate the activity on one in the other? Haven't tried deleting either because I'm scared of losing their billing and payment history. Thanks!
2
Comments
Hi there,
Thanks for the feedback on a Merge customer feature. While we don't have a merge function at this time, you can address this by editing the invoices so that everything is tied to one customer record, then you will be able to remove that customer from your system. In order to tell the difference when editing, you can change the name of one customer and then you'll be able to go and find them easier to make the changes.
Okay, I'll do that. Thanks for the help!
Hello!
How would this be possible if the customers have already paid their invoices? My issue is the same - duplicate customer, a series of connected and paid invoices.
Hi @OpsDir_SRCDN Once an invoice is paid through Payments by Wave, I'm afraid that the transaction or invoice cannot be adjusted. This is due to needing accurate records for funds that have been moved by Wave. For this reason, you will not be able to merge the customers together.
I'm in agreement, this is something I'd really like to see changed. I had a client who originally had me send invoices to the specific project leaders, but has since made one central billing email. I'd love to see my stats for everything I've billed this client for rather than have to look at three different customers to see everything.
I agree,
Waveapps lacking this feature in anyway is fundamentally negligent. It would take very little effort to create a "Merge Customer" feature and would offer businesses a fantastic tool for cleaning up their records.
What!!!!
I got warned for referencing how a competitor solves this problem and then MY POST was edited to not feature that information.
To be clear, I indicated how this feature could be solved by linking to a website where another service gives instructions on how their clients can merge customers and vendors. However, instead of positive feedback and learning from the post Wave decided to "punish" me with...
{from my email}
"Barsin sent you a message in You've been warned.
You are being warned for the following post:
... [ original post text edited out so that I don't get "warned" again]"
So now I understand Wave a little more clearly. It would seem that instead of solving this glaring issue and perpetuate constructive conversation among us (their paying customers) they would rather ignore their flaws and censor our comments so that they can pretend "everything is fine".
D-level service here. This is why I normally avoid businesses private forums. They eventually just delete the comments and suggestions that would otherwise need actual addressing and ignore the voices of their customers for their own bottom line. Better to just put complaints in straight forward honest google, facebook, yelp, etc reviews.
This is still an utter joke. The laughable excuse they give is...
"This is due to needing accurate records for funds that have been moved by Wave. "
However nothing about changing or merging customer info jeopardizes this information as long as whoever is handling the payment processing information does their job correctly. If I can completely change every piece of customer information on my end then there is quite literally ZERO risk in merging two customers on my end.
So while the excuses above seems very legit, don't be fooled, it's just a really wordy way of not having to say "we don't feel like making an update"
Indeed, Wave, this is fixable on your end if you are willing to address it. Tonight cinched it for me. Wave has now way of allowing us to apply an overpayment to a clients future invoice without and elaborate workaround which defeats the purpose of using Wave payments to streamline and save time...and now to learn there is no Merge Customer function. I have appreciated a lot of the simplicity of Wave these last two years, but that lack of basic accounting functionality is too lacking. Changing over the the world standard accounting software on January 1st, 2021. The free trial has made it clear that the customer is king and can customize the software to do whatever the business needs it to do. Remember, Wave, it's about the Customer's needs for ease and flexibility and customization to suit the specific needs of the Customer, not to fit into Wave's way of doing things. Best wishes in your developing software.
Has there been any resolution here? I still need to merge and having a way to credit an account would be very useful too. May I also mention, a way to edit the outgoing email by customer would be a huge plus. Thanks!
Hey @Louie_ !
At this time, there is no feature that allows you to merge customers I'm afraid. Instead, you will have to follow Rahim's workaround mentioned above.
We are adding invoices via an API into Wave. In the above vein and in a way to prevent duplicates in the first place, I have client who ended up creating many versions of the same customer "John Smith" x 5. [In Quickbooks they have a field called "Display Name" and this value must be unique. Seems we dont have same rule here in Wave.]
saw an "account number" field on customer and crossed fingers hoping that maybe there is a 'unique' key constraint on this field (thinking its not normal multiple customers will share same account number) but alas no luck. Seems Account number is also free form. My question, in my search to mitigate duplicates, is there any way to uniquely identify a customer when adding an invoice via API to avoid adding an invoice to potentially the wrong customer?