Merging duplicate or pre-existing QuickBooks customer records with the corresponding Gazelle record is easy!
Note: Once you establish your initial sync from Gazelle to QuickBooks; Gazelle does not create duplicate customer records in QuickBooks. If by mistake you create a duplicate record in QuickBooks (or you have preexisting customers with previous transaction histories) you can follow these steps to create a single unified record that merges all previous and future transactions under a single unified QuickBooks customer record.
Step-by-step instructions:
In QuickBooks you can clean up your client list and transfer past transactions from pre-existing (or manually created) QuickBooks customer records by merging them into a single unified record that is linked between Gazelle and QuickBooks.
Step 1: In QuickBooks: Locate one of your preexisting customer records with a transaction history that overlaps a customer in Gazelle. Let's call this 'Customer A'.
Step 2: In Gazelle: Sync your 'Customer A' record from Gazelle to QuickBooks (this happens automatically the first time you sync a transaction for this customer).
Notice: In QuickBooks you cannot have two customers with the same exact name spelling (this is a limitation in QuickBooks) which is why after syncing you need to follow steps 3-8 to create a unified customer record in QuickBooks that links to the corresponding customer record in Gazelle (and preserves your prior transaction history for this customer).
Take these steps in QuickBooks to merge preexisting customer transactions by creating a single unified customer record between Gazelle-QuickBooks:
Step 3: In QuickBooks: Search for 'Customer A' and notice there are now two records: Customer A (the pre-existing QuickBooks record) and Customer A* (the record being managed by Gazelle). This asterisk will be removed in Step 8, but for now it is a temporary measure necessary to follow QuickBooks instructions for making it easy for you to identify and merge potentially duplicate records.
Step 4: Next, click on Customer A (without the asterisk) > then click Edit.
Step 5: Next, locate the 'Display Name As' field and type the exact name of the customer record you want to merge this customer with. For our example you will want to type: Customer A* (don't forget the asterisk, it is important).
Step 6: Click Save.
Step 7: QuickBooks will ask "Do you want to merge these records", select 'Yes'.
Step 8: Done. QuickBooks will transfer all the past transactions from your pre-existing (or manually created) QuickBooks customer record; with your Gazelle Managed QuickBooks customer record. You can remove the asterisk manually or Gazelle will remove it automatically the next time we sync a transaction for this customer.
IMPORTANT: These steps follow QuickBooks documentation for managing and merging duplicate customer records. Step #5 isn't the most intuitive step, but it is easy to do and follows the steps outlined by QuickBooks documentation. Also note, step #7 will permanently delete the former QuickBooks customer record so make sure to transfer any notes from your former QuickBooks customer that you want to keep. QuickBooks doesn't make this clear and sadly they have chosen not to allow users to map customer fields when merging records (they only map transactions).