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143 votes
Hey community, thank you for your continued interest in this idea.
Wanted to provide an update here as it's been a while since we last spoke to duplicate contacts.
I do understand that, at face value, this seems like a quick fix. However, as the contacts screen interacts with many other parts of Xero, this work can not commence until the modernisation of other, related systems is complete.
Due to this, we do not expect support for duplicate contacts to be delivered in the coming short-term.
In the meantime however, we're keen to continue collecting feedback and votes on this idea, and I will update you here as soon as there's more work to share.
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Adam Bent
commented
@James DC
From the conversations I have had with Xero, this work is not even on the horizon (I'm not Xero so someone with more knowledge may correct me).With one of my clients, we did find a work around for bringing in client information from an external source. It isn't ideal or perfect, but it does work.
Our external system creates a unique ID for each contact, regardless of name. We have set the API to:
1 - consolidate the client name and unique ID and use this as the Xero 'Contact Name'. This avoids any duplication and still allows you to search by name or ID.
2 - populate the Xero 'Primary Contact' with the client name. This could be an individual or company.
3 - reformat invoices to remove the 'Contact Name' and use the 'Primary Contact'. This keeps all communication clean and correct.I'm not the tech, but if you have any questions I am sure I can get an answer for you.
Hope this helps.
Adam
An error occurred while saving the comment Adam Bent
commented
@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?
An error occurred while saving the comment Adam Bent
commented
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.
Adam Bent
supported this idea
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313 votes
Hi everyone, thanks for the idea and support here. We appreciate all the valuable feedback and ideas shared regarding the ability to split batch payments when reconciling, and understand it currently takes extra steps to reconcile when a single invoice among a batch has been paid, or when there are multiple payments to the same entity for different invoices.
Being transparent, we don’t have direct plans for making this change within the foreseeable future but if anything changes in this space, we’ll update you on this idea!An error occurred while saving the comment Adam Bent
commented
Currently Xero only allows payment files to be created as a batch. If, for any reason, one payment needs to be edited, the whole batch needs to be edited. Or, if you need to make a series of payments to the same recipient using unique references, you are unable to do so as Xero consolidates the payment information.
Xero should offer the option to create a batch file or create a payment file of individual lines for export.Adam Bent
supported this idea
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61 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Adam Bent
commented
I'd say this is critical but for a slightly different reason. I process a number of self-billing invoices for clients. The Xero process is to adapt the Purchase Order template and use this to create the bill, then email it to Xero so it can be added as a bill on the client account. The one issue is the pdf file still says Purchase Order which isnt great when it goes out to the client. I'm going to adapt the covering email to alert the client to this error, but it isnt great given you can change all other elements and this is the way Xero advise you to process self-billing.
Adam Bent
supported this idea
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14 votesAdam Bent
shared this idea
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@Sarah Coxon
Yes, this is a terrible flaw in the Xero database that they have known about for a significant time, yet have not fixed.
To add to other comments, the unique reference within Xero is the "Contact name". By appending the name with a unique reference you will create a unique record in Xero that is searchable.
Then populate the "Primary Person" fields with the correct name excluding the unique reference.
For formatted documents such as invoices you can remove the tab for "Contact Name" and instead rely on "Primary Person". This will look wrong on the screen, but will print correctly on your documents.
One of my clients creates new users in a third party platform and created their API to populate Xero as above so it is automated.
Maybe I should get them to create a fix and sell it to Xero..........