Who this is for
An operations lead, bookkeeper or shop owner whose shop, CRM or spreadsheet pushes customers into Xero and who finds the same customer split across several contacts.
Statements, aged receivables or invoice history for one customer are spread over contacts with slightly different names or emails, and every sync run adds more.
The result
A synthetic customer list run twice through the sync produces one Xero contact per customer, a customer whose name or email changes updates the same contact, and conflicts are listed for a person instead of creating another contact.
What is included
- One named sync that creates or updates Xero contacts from one customer source
- A stable customer identity stored against the contact (the contact number the API allows, and the Xero contact id once known) and a match order that uses it first
- A rule for same-name customers with different ids, changed details, and archived contacts that hold a contact number
- A report of suspected existing duplicates by identity, as a list for your bookkeeper to merge or archive in Xero
- Replay and change tests on a Xero demo organisation with invented customers
You receive
- The change as a pull request or exported configuration, with the match order written down in plain words
- A test log showing contact counts before and after each replay, redacted
- A list of suspected duplicate groups in your test data, or in a redacted export you provide after agreement
What is not included
- Merging, archiving or deleting contacts in your real organisation: your bookkeeper does that in Xero
- Changing how invoices are created, numbered or taxed
- Cleaning the customer source itself, or deciding which of two real customers is the right one
- Contact groups, payment terms or tracking set-up beyond the fields the sync already writes
- Bookkeeping, tax, audit or any accounting advice, including deciding how a transaction should be treated in your accounts
- Changing posted, reconciled or locked-period transactions: your accountant or account holder decides and performs those
- Live changes: your authorised account holder applies any agreed change and holds the production keys
What we need from you first
- How the sync decides today whether a customer exists (name, email, something else) in your own words
- Three invented customers that show your problem, for example a changed email and a same-name pair
- Whether archived contacts are common and whether contact numbers are used in Xero today
- Do not send credentials, bank details, invoices, customer records or confidential code in the first enquiry
Never send passwords, keys, customer records or confidential code in the first enquiry. Secure handover is agreed after scoping.
How we check it is done
- A synthetic list of ten invented customers, replayed twice, leaves exactly ten contacts in the demo organisation with unchanged contact ids.
- An invented customer whose email and name are changed in the source updates the same contact rather than creating another.
- Two invented customers with the same name and different ids follow the written rule: two contacts, or one held conflict, never silently one merged contact.
- An invented archived contact holding a contact number produces a listed exception instead of a new contact.
You inspect the named test evidence and sign off before payment. Your authorised account holder performs and verifies any live change, and decides what happens to records already posted.
When we would stop or decline
- The source has no identifier that survives a name or email change and none can be agreed
- The sync must also push contacts into another accounting system with different matching rules
- Most of the problem is a large historical clean-up of contacts, which needs a separate agreement
Questions
Will you merge my existing duplicate contacts?
No. Merging or archiving real contacts is done by your bookkeeper in Xero. We give a list of suspected groups to speed that up.
Why not match on email?
Emails change and are sometimes shared by several customers. A stored identity is a safer first key; email can still be a flagged fallback.
Does this work for QuickBooks Online?
This job is for Xero. QuickBooks Online has different customer naming rules and would be scoped separately.
Price and terms
From £345 · untested offer price. Fixed after the quote is agreed (from £345); payment after the agreed checks pass and you sign off. No payment before sign-off.
This is a new service with no published client results. The price is a starting point we have not yet tested with buyers. Nothing is ordered or charged by the enquiry. The full specification is on the Synthetic Industry catalogue.