How do I find duplicate customers or vendors in Business Central?
The short answer
In standard Business Central:
- For contacts, use Duplicate Contacts to find likely duplicates.
- For customers and vendors, finding likely duplicates across the whole list is the hard part. Most teams export the lists to Excel and compare names, VAT numbers and addresses by hand.
- Once you know two records are the same, use the Merge Duplicate action on the customer or vendor card to merge them.
Merging is quick. On a long list, the comparison can take hours and still miss near matches.
The faster way
With Bee Solved, the AI Assistant for Business Central, you ask for likely duplicates in plain English.
Find likely duplicate customers.
| Customer A Ltd and Customer A Limited | Same VAT number |
| Customer B and Customer B (North) | Similar name and address |
| Customer C and C. Trading | Same address |
It lists likely matches with the reason, such as the same VAT number or a similar name or address, and links to both records so you can check them side by side. You can ask the same question about vendors. Finding duplicates only reads your records, so nothing is changed.
Bee Solved works in Claude, ChatGPT or Microsoft 365 Copilot. It signs in as the person asking, uses their Business Central permissions, and links every answer back to the records behind it.
Questions
Can it merge them?
It flags them for a person to decide. Merging stays in Business Central, using its Merge Duplicate action.
Why does it say a pair is a likely match?
Each pair comes with the reason, such as the same VAT number or a similar name or address, so you can judge it yourself.
Does it use my permissions?
Yes. It works as the signed-in person, with their Business Central permissions, so it only sees what they are allowed to see.
Ask this about your own customer and vendor lists.