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  1. Contacts - Allow duplicate contact names

    190 votes

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    103 comments  ·  Contacts & files » Contact  ·  Admin →
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    Not in pipeline  ·  AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded

    Hi everyone, we want to thank you all for your meaningful feedback and detail of the uses you each have for enabling duplicate names for contacts.

    Right now, the contact name field is the key identifier that interacts with many other Xero features, and as such, changing how this field functions is not a small feat.

    As noted by others in the comments, some users have found adding unique characters or using the account number in the contact name useful.

    At this time we don’t have plans for developing the ability to have duplicate names of a contact in Xero. However, the work happening around core features might open the door for improvements like this down the line.

    For now, we'll keep a close watch on the support this idea continues to build, and we’ll make sure to share updates if anything changes.

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    Admin ASCA commented  · 

    I'd really like to upvote this as essential please due to the fact there are many Jane Smith's who would be customers.
    Building any database record set on Name seems incredibly short sighted or simplistic. Databases need unique ID's for EVERY person for many, many reason and this being a very big one.

    That is why we have unique payroll numbers, medicare numbers etc etc. Is Xero's primary key Name? Surely it can't be can it?

    Is the fix really to have Mrs Jane Smith? Jane Smith? Jane Smith@? Jane Smith6? Jane Smith7?

    Any database software uses primary and foreign keys right? If we could use them and import them to our systems that would be better to match and import on.

    Or simply allowing us to create and External ID field in Xero that we could then populate our proper primary key from our systems into to match would be a pretty quick fix.

    I'm a bit shocked to be reading that this has been an issue for so long and Xero bases everything on name...

    Any relational database model dating back decades uses the premise of a unique number identifier surely.