Skip to content
← For small businesses

Enter your idea

For small businesses: Contacts & communication

Categories

(thinking…)

Contacts - Bulk Merge

Would be great to have the ability to bulk merge contacts in Xero rather than having to do this one at a time - would be a great time saver!

130 votes

We're glad you're here

Please sign in to leave feedback
Signed in as (Sign out)
Close
Close

We’ll send you updates on this idea

Geena Chiodo shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
delivered  ·  AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded  · 

Hi team, great news! Merge, as I mentioned in my last update is now available to everyone. 


Go to your contacts All list, select your contacts and you'll see an option to 'Merge' show above - See help in Xero Central


While it's not possible to merge through import if this is something you feel could really add value, you're welcome to start a new idea and we can view of the support in that, too. 🙂

Show previous admin responses (3)
Comments are closed An error occurred while saving the comment
  • Vivian Wu commented  ·   ·  Report

    Agree, please have this bulk merge function back asap.

  • Jason Krueger commented  ·   ·  Report

    Is this update going to allow for merging through an upload? I have roughly 10,000+ contacts that need to be merged, where various systems have created contacts in different ways. It's a total mess...!

    As a result of this I basically cannot and do not use Xero as data source.

  • Debbie Barlow commented  ·   ·  Report

    This function is so useful - please bring it back. Has there been any further advise on if / when this might be restored?

  • Xero Admin commented  ·   ·  Report

    Totalling agree with Emma Timms comment. Very frustrating that you have removed a useful feature that was commonly used to deal with bank and invoice software creating multiple contacts with no plans to restore it.

  • Werijke Louw commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hi Xero Team, can you please add this bulk merge functionality for contacts back ASAP, it is surely missed!

  • Emma Tymms commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is one of the most frustrating updates to the Xero product.
    The way banks feed into Xero keeps changing and what they report in each field, and clients reconcile their own transactions from the feeds, meaning a new contact for every transaction is created, usually with unique Invoice or payment reference numbers in the contact names.

    There needs to be one simple fix to merge multiple contacts, like there used to be, rather than merging each. contact. one. at. a. time!!

  • Sam Gray commented  ·   ·  Report

    @Max, absolutely but MVP bro. Minimally viable product. Tech companies want to release something as soon as possible (to beat the market and start the feedback loop), then use the release as a test to see what breaks and what people scream about most (to fix).
    As for Andrew's useful workaround. Xero Support have said Xero don't want you doing it because they reckon the Merge contacts button on the old Contacts screen was causing issues too.

  • Max Sandery commented  ·   ·  Report

    If the new contacts screen was breaking existing features, then the new contacts screen wasn't ready for release, was it?

    Thank you Andrew Symes for providing the workaround. I wonder why Xero didn't just provide this link in the meantime?

  • Ian Dodds commented  ·   ·  Report

    Contacts including supplier & Clients have been around since teh first software imports & are often duplicated with imp[orts & new software trials.
    .
    A quick & easy method is very beneficial.

  • Carla Swan commented  ·   ·  Report

    I am 100% in support of this change as I have 30,000 + contacts that were imported from new software API integration that I am trying to tidy up. It will take me weeks to merge these contacts one by one.
    Xero, please restore the functionality of bulk merging.

  • Lisa Tong commented  ·   ·  Report

    Honestly super annoying to change something that worked into something that now doesn't work. Why? Please put it back the way it was so we can select multiple contacts and then in one click merge with one contact. This is for things like Ubers and bank charges and international bank fees where in Xero it appears as a different contact for every payment and a tidy up is needed once in a while or just 3 or 4 contacts like say petrol stations or chain store where each store has a number on the end but we don't need 30 BPs or Mobil contacts. Next time ask users before changing things for the worse. It's becoming a Xero habit

  • Sam Gray commented  ·   ·  Report

    @Renee and @Andrew, funny that Xero left this page accessible, because I'm sure they don't want people using it given they said they'd removed the merge function because it caused issues (I don't believe that) and wouldn't tell me it was available (albeit hidden) when I was complaining to support that I couldn't find it 😅

  • Trinity Scott commented  ·   ·  Report

    I found the merge function where they moved it to within the individual contact, but it was much handier and much more practical when it was on the top level menu.

  • Grace Orrell commented  ·   ·  Report

    Bring this back please! Work around by using find and record, and then archiving the contacts that are not used. However not its not ideal.
    Especially when you use cash coding - lots of contacts created from the bank statement lines automatically without you realising!

  • Heather Palmer commented  ·   ·  Report

    This ability was available and xero removed it, not happy at all that they have done that. Please reconsider users point of view and bring this feature back

← Previous 1