Salesforce users know that duplicate entries are quite common when you use such customer management software. In order to maintain the accuracy of your database, you have to be able to get rid of these duplicates. As deletion is not such a good idea, you need to find a way to merge the information in the duplicate accounts.

Merging accounts in Salesforce is possible only if you are an administrator or the account owner. It is also possible that users above the account owner in the hierarchy can operate this change, but they need to have the appropriate user permissions in order to do so.

If you don’t own the two accounts you wish to merge, you should have both Delete and Edit permissions on both accounts. You need to be able to delete because one of the accounts is going to be deleted from the system following the merge. The Edit permission is needed because the account name field will have to change, thus editing opportunities and cases that are associated with the accounts to be merged.

Avoid Duplicates By Merging Accounts In Salesforce

The newly merged account will hold all information related to any of the two duplicate accounts. Beware that any manual sharing from the Master Record is applied to the newly merged account. The discarded duplicate records are automatically moved to the Recycle Bin.

The Created By date is taken from the oldest of the two accounts. The date of the merge is displayed as the Modified By date. If your organization uses divisions, the new account is assigned to the division of the Master Record by default. If you need the change this, you have to select it manually.

The actual operation of merging accounts in Salesforce is done from the Accounts tab, by selecting Merge Accounts. Next, you have to enter a few characters to find your accounts, and then select all of them. You can merge up to three accounts. You have to select one of them to be the Master Record, and then check all the fields you want to retain from each of the records. If there’s any conflicting data, the software is going to warn you by marking the conflicting rows in blue. If everything is OK, all you have to do is click the Merge button and merging accounts in Salesforce is done. If you check all details carefully, your duplicate accounts are going to become one, allowing you to maintain an accurate database.