Home CRM Duplicate Management

Duplicate Management

Last updated on Feb 05, 2026

With any CRM system (customer relationship manager), duplicate contact entries are inevitable as data grows over time — from imports, typos, or simply not realizing a record already exists. Appraisal Inbox tackles this with three layers of protection to both prevent new duplicates and clean up existing ones: search-as-you-type suggestions, a check when saving a new contact or client, and automated nightly scans that detect potential duplicates with a built-in interface for merging them.

How It Works

Duplicate prevention happens at three levels, each catching what the previous one missed:

  1. Search & Select — When you're adding a client or contact, the system searches your existing records as you type, letting you know if they're already in the CRM.

  2. Create-Time Check — If you click "Add New" to create a record, the system checks for duplicates before saving. If a potential match is found, you'll see a warning.

  3. Nightly Scan — Every night, the system scans all your records for duplicates that may have slipped through — from imports, typos, or other data entry.

Search & Select

Whenever you add a client or contact on an appraisal form the input field works as a live search.

  1. Start typing a name, email, or phone number

  2. Matching records appear in a dropdown as you type, showing name, email, phone, and client association (when a contact)

  3. Select an existing record to use it — no duplicate created

  4. If you are sure no true match exists, click Add "[name]" as new client at the bottom of the dropdown to create one

🧠 Tip: The search looks across all your contacts and clients at once, so even partial matches on email or phone will surface existing records.

Create-Time Duplicate Check

When you create a new client or contact (from the "Add New" option above, the Client create page, or the quick-create button), the system automatically checks for duplicates before saving.


If potential matches are found, a Possible Duplicates warning appears:

  1. Review the matches — each shows the name, match type (e.g., "Email Match", "Name Match"), and confidence level

  2. Select an existing record to use it instead of creating a new one

  3. Or click Create New Anyway if you're sure this is a different person or company

You can click the pencil icon next to any match to view the full record before deciding.

📝 Note: If the check can't complete for any reason, your save goes through normally. The nightly scan will catch any duplicates later.

Nightly Duplicate Scan

Every night, the system scans all recently added clients and contacts across your organization to find duplicates that weren't caught during creation — such as records from imports, bulk data entry, or subtle name variations.

Reviewing Duplicates

When duplicates are found, a badge appears on the duplicate icon in the top navigation bar showing the number of pending groups to review.

  1. Click the duplicate icon to open the Possible Duplicates window

  2. Each group shows the records the system believes are duplicates, along with the match type and confidence level. To see the details, click the gray bar or down arrow for the group.

Merging Duplicates

For each duplicate group, you choose which record to keep and what field values the merged record should have.

  1. Select the record to keep — this becomes the primary record going forward

  2. Choose field values — for each field (name, email, phone, address), pick which record's value to use, or edit the merged value directly

  3. Click Merge to combine the records

When records are merged all appraisals, notes, files, invoices, and messages from the duplicate are moved to the retained record.

Keeping Records Separate

If the system flags two records as duplicates but you are sure they're actually different people or companies:

  1. Click Keep Separate on the group (and be thoughtful, you can't undo this decision)

  2. The system remembers your decision and won't flag that pair again in future scans

Client Duplicates with Shared Contacts

When merging duplicate clients, the system also checks if those clients have duplicate contacts between them. You'll see an expandable section showing any contact matches, and you can merge those at the same time, including the ability to change the "primary" contact.

Notes & Tips

  • Search & Select is your best friend — getting in the habit of searching before creating is the most effective way to keep your data clean.

  • Who can review duplicates — only team members with full access or account owner permissions can see the duplicate badge and merge records.

  • Smart matching — the system catches name variations like "Bob" vs "Robert", "LLC" vs "Inc", and common typos, so you'll see matches that an exact name search would miss.