Enter your idea

Is there any update to this? I know this said isn't 'coming short term' which as a developer usually means not within the next 6 months, but it would be nice to know if the xero devs are currently discussing it, or creating a POC, or even in testing stage. We're in the process of migrating our invoicing system to xero of which we have hundreds of duplicate organisation names, and fudging them with a zero width space isn't the answer. At the moment its a show stopper on my API work as our internal system doesn't enforce this. Even a combination of account name + account ref if uniqueness must be upheld would be sufficient.

Xero is currently set up to recognise whether a contact is a duplicate based on the "Contact Name" however, it would be very helpful to have the option to set up "by Email". This way, if an email address is entered on a new contact which is already assigned to an existing contact, this would show an error. It could be an "Optional" error, where you are able to click "ignore" and continue to create the contact, as this may not work for all businesses.

Database issues aside, the idea that a business won't ever deal with two different people with the same name is absolutely rediculous. 2 weeks is a quick fix, 9 years is simply ignoring the issue...

Please prioritise this as a matter of urgency! It's a glaring fault with the system. There will be so many people in the world with the same first and last names. The system should recognise duplicates on email addresses versus names! That would make more sense!

Getting this fault sorted would be huge benefit to many businesses and I was actually very surprised when I learnt that Xero couldn't do this. I do realise this is an accounting system but in reality people have the same names - as long as the contact details are different which they always are. I have used other (much older systems) that can do this. Please make this a priority Xero team :)

This sounds like Xero has guaranteed the schema for a period of time to all the developers who are adding their $$$ to the big picture; I'm not sure that they wouldn't be having their own problems dealing with the issue.
The one thing that amazes me is that Xero doesn't keep any track of what the community is saying unless the message comes through CA onsellers (who aren't actually having to deal with user issues such as this).

Ethan,

I cant think of any system modernisation that would take more than nine years other than engineering apathy!

-MrHinsh

+1 please sort out this quickly - huge number of Xero customers are having hard time because of this!

This is an absolute must in any modern system. There are literally millions and millions of people in the world with the same first/last name combination. I'm really surprised this hasn't be fixed and improved yet. Here's to hoping it will be soon!

I agree that a solution should be found by Xero to such a simple request.
Please prioritise this and get it done

@Ethan M

This chain was started over nine years ago in 2014 and it is possible there are earlier references to it. I am sure by anyone's definition, the idea of a quick fix passed quite some time ago.

It is difficult to understand how Xero built a database with this limitation in the first instance, but mistakes happen. It is staggering that Xero have known about this flaw in the database for over nine years and have chosen not to fix it, but instead to continue building on it and in doing so, making it ever more difficult to fix.

It is a shame Xero have pushed this to a product idea page as though it would be a nice feature to add rather than acknowledging it for the fundamental flaw it actually is.

While it may technically work, to advise your users they can add special characters to a client's name which will be used on invoices and correspondence is terrible.

As to your last sentence, Xero have been collecting and ignoring feedback on this flaw for over nine years, how long do Xero need to collect opinion for before fixing flaws?

Hi Terry
When I contacted customer service and I got the below response.

"Thanks for getting in touch.

It’s not currently possible to add a contact with the same name as an existing contact in Xero.

In the meantime, you can edit one of the contact’s names to include a special character or capital letters, so that the contact name is unique.

I've included a link to Xero Product Ideas. Xero Product Ideas is where you can view and support current ideas, or share your idea on what you'd like to see in Xero.

Xero Product Ideas: Share and support customer ideas for Xero"

I have found out recently that our account has like a "direct line" or separate portal, for comms with Xero customer service or product team. Xero must reply to them within a certain timeframe (something like 24-48 hours). If all our accountants helped get the message across we might not have to wait another 10 years!??

This issue has been reported for circa 10 years and yet the Product Team still take no action and the Customer Service Team still provide the same stat response:

"As a workaround here you can edit one of the contact’s names to include a special character or capital letters, so that the contact name is unique.

If you want to be able to have contacts with the same name then you can raise the idea on our Product Ideas page. Our Product team looks at these ideas to see which ones they can build into Xero for our users 😃"

A highly embarrassed emoji would have been more appropriate to use when suggesting I post this as an idea given the Product Team have already been ignoring it for at least 10 years.

I would add, this isn't an idea, it is a fix to a fundamental flaw in a database.

This is very poor from Xero.

Consider the following scenario:

Customer A "John Smith" buys on my WooCommerce site. The system creates a new user in Xero, "John Smith".

John logs onto Xero, creating an account, to check his invoice.

Customer B, also called "John Smith" buys on my WooCommerce site. The system recognises the name in Xero, and overwrites "John Smith" A's data with "John Smith" B's credentials, address, email etc..

When "John Smith" A logs in, will he see "John Smith" B's transactions and credentials which would surely be a GDPR issue. Or will be be unable to access his own account and transactions?

When I ship "John Smith" A's product, I will see "John Smith" B's address and risk sending to the wrong person.

I just raised the same issue with Xero Support and got a response "It’s not currently possible to add a contact with the same name as an existing contact in Xero. In the meantime, you can edit one of the contact’s names to include a special character or capital letters, so that the contact name is unique".
This will look very unprofessional having John Smith2 and John Smith3.
Surely it can't be that hard to fix this issue?

Yes, as an NDIS Provider, we have Plan Managers who pay on behalf of the client. And many clients have the same Plan Manager. For sure the Account number should be the unique identifier.

xero database schema was created by someone with no brain at all. It is a common sense to use fields like email id or account id to be unique and not the name. Worst thing is Xero does not allow to search contacts by name or by email; xero allows contacts to be searched by contact number. Absolutely ridiculous; never seen such a piece of ****.

xero database schema was created by someone with no brain at all. It is a common sense to use fields like email id or account id to be unique and not the name. Worst thing is Xero does not allow to search contacts by name or by email but only by contact number. Absolutely ridiculous; never seen such a piece of ****.

there must be a limit on number of votes needed to be considered. 84 votes need to go up up up up up. so everyone you know at work who has access, get them to please place a vote. you meet a friend who uses Xero, get them to see this post and vote