Field note
Duplicates that cost a quarter, not a weekend
· Daniel Tan
How duplicates hide
They rarely look identical. One record uses the registered company name, another uses the trading name, a third was created from a web form with a missing ‘Sdn Bhd’. Activity is split. The forecast is split. Two account managers both believe they are being reasonable.
A weekend merge without rules will pick the wrong survivor. An audit agrees the match rules first — legal name, registration number if you have it, domain, phone — then shows clusters with examples the team recognises.
What to distrust until you merge
Any report that counts open opportunities by account. Any ‘white space’ view. Any automated sequence that emails a contact who already has a live thread on the other record. We write those caveats into the findings so leadership is not surprised.