Merge QuickBooks Customers the Right Way

QuickBooks lets you merge two Customer records into one, moving all of the removed Customer's records to the Customer you keep and then deleting or deactivating it. We discourage this: it changes historical data, complicates auditing, and can create an out-of-balance condition in Maxio if a moved Invoice and its linked Transaction end up out of sync with each other.

Important: Read this article before merging, especially on QuickBooks Online. Merging the wrong way there means your Invoices won't move to the consolidated Customer, and you'll have to redo the process.

How to merge Customers correctly

After a merge, QuickBooks Online only deactivates the emptied Customer; QuickBooks Desktop deletes it. That distinction matters because a Customer Inactive in QuickBooks Online changes how Invoices sync to Maxio, so the merge approach differs by product:

• QuickBooks Online: Merging Customers the normal way doesn't move your Invoices after the sync. Instead, while the to-be-removed Customer is still Active in both QuickBooks and Maxio, manually change the Customer Name on each Invoice you want moved to match the consolidated Customer's name, then sync. Only after that's done should you merge the Customer (or make it inactive).
• QuickBooks Desktop: Edit the Customer you want removed so its Name matches the Customer you want to keep, then merge them normally. All records move to the kept Customer, and the edited Customer is deleted. Sync via the Web Connector, and every Invoice now sits under the consolidated Customer.

Once the Invoices sit under the consolidated Customer in Maxio, the remaining steps are the same for both products.

Merge into the Customer name you want to keep

Merge the Customer you want deleted or deactivated into the Customer whose name you want to keep, not the reverse. If you merge the to-be-kept Customer into the to-be-deleted one, you can't simply rename it afterward: a Customer that's synced with QuickBooks can't be deleted in Maxio, so the leftover record of the deleted Customer causes sync issues if you rename your consolidated Customer to match it.

For example, if you merge Customer B into Customer A and then try to rename Customer A to "Customer B," the sync breaks because Customer B still exists in Maxio. Instead, rename Customer B to "Customer C" first, then rename Customer A to "Customer B," then merge Customer C into the new Customer B. This workaround is worth using when the Customer with the name you want to keep has significantly fewer Transactions than the one you're removing.

Related information

For other QuickBooks actions that have real consequences in Maxio, see QuickBooks Actions That Affect Maxio.

For how Customers sync generally, see Sync QuickBooks Customers.

If a merge left an Invoice and its Transaction out of balance, see Invoice and Transaction Customer Mismatch to fix it.