There are occasions where you may want to merge a Customer, Product or Vendor into an existing Customer, Product or Vendor. For instance you may discover a Product that is a duplicate record with a slightly different product code or a Vendor or Customer that has been bought by another company. This procedure is easy in The Business Edge.
The menu path to Merging Products is below:
Inventory System
Inventory File Maintenance
Duplicate & Merge Products
Merge Product History
First, select your Primary Product and the Product to Be Absorbed. Merge Product History allows you to choose whether you would like to merge Notes, Unique Alternates and Certificate Requirements. Once you have made your selections click ok or escape
The Business Edge will prompt you with a confirmation that your Products have been merged .
The Product in the screen shown below was the Product to be Absorbed which no longer exists. As you can see there was an alternate associated to it. When searching the Primary Product, the Alternate Product from the Product to be Absorbed is now visible in the Primary Product Master file as seen below because we selected Yes to Merge Unique Alternate Products.
Both the Primary Product and Product to be Absorbed must have the same stocking Unit of Measure. If you attempt to merge two products with differing stocking Units of Measure, the message below will be displayed. The stocking Unit of Measure can be changed through Master Files, Enter & Edit Products.
The Menu Path to Merge Customers is below:
Accounts Receivable System
A/R File Maintenance
Customer Misc. Maintenance
Merge Customers
Merge Customer History
Merging Customers works the same as Merging Products, however there are options to merge Addresses and Contacts as well. Open Orders, existing Invoices and Invoices in Process for the absorbed Customer will automatically be associated with the Primary Customer.
The Business Edge will prompt you with a pop up confirming that your Customers have been merged as seen below.
It is also possible to merge Non-Active Customers in the path below.
Accounts Receivable System A/R File Maintenance Customer Misc. Maintenance Merge Customers Merge Non-Active Customers
Oftentimes there are “dead” or Non Active Customers that have not had any recent activity that you may want to merge into a Primary Customer. While Merging Non Active Customers you will enter a date range in the Last Activity Date field. This will bring up a list of customers that have had no activity within the specified Last Activity Date field. The additional merge options are the same as when Merging Customers.
Once you have made your selections and press escape or click okay. A list of Customers that have not had activity since the specified date will be displayed. By default the Merge column is set to Yes. If you do not want to merge certain Customers there is a Toggle Merge button on the right that can set the highlighted Customer to No
Finally, you will get a pop up asking if you want to merge all of the Customer that you have selected Yes to Merge.
The path to Merge Vendors is found below:
Accounts Payable System
A/P File Maintenance
Vendor Misc. Maintenance
Merge Vendor History
The merge options are Alternate Products, Unique Contract Prices, Notes, Addresses and Contacts
You cannot Merge Vendors with Open ARS Batches. If there is a Vendor that has a Product on an Open ARS Batch a pop up warning will be displayed.
The path to clear an ARS Batch is found below.
Purchase Order System
Vendor Request For Quote System
Automatic Replenishment System
Auto Replenishment Maintenance
Open ARS Batch Inquiry
On the right you can highlight a line and choose Remove Batch or choose to Remove All Batches. If you choose to Remove All Batches you will get a “Auto Replenishment System – Remove All Batches” Cut-off date screen. All batches created on or before the date entered will be removed.
Once you have removed any Open ARS Batches you are ready to Merge Vendor History.
Once complete you will get a message that your Vendors have been Merged.
The Product code shown below prior to Merging Vendors was associated to Vendor #322
Once the Merge was complete the same Product Code is associated with Vendor #285 which is the Primary Vendor.
