Multi-Company Contacts and Bulk Merging Contacts in Re-Leased

This guide explains how Multi-Company Contacts work, why they matter, and how to use the Bulk Merge Contacts feature. By the end, you'll know how to streamline contact management, reduce duplicate data, and save significant time maintaining records across multiple entities.

Why It Matters

Historically, contacts in Re-Leased were limited to single-company associations. This often resulted in duplicate records when the same contact was needed in multiple legal entities. By introducing Multi-Company Contacts and Bulk Merge Contacts, we’ve made it easier to:

• Reduce duplicate data and maintain cleaner records.
• Streamline search and contact management for invoices and communication history.
• Eliminate guesswork when choosing the right contact for a task.
• Save time by updating shared contact details once for all linked entities.
• Clean up multiple duplicates in one action instead of one by one.

How to Add a Contact to Multiple Companies

With Multi-Company Contacts, you can link a single contact record to multiple companies. Follow these steps:

1. From the contact’s record, navigate to the Companies tab.
2. Click Edit.
3. Select all the companies this contact should be associated with.
4. Click Update.

Tip: The contact will now appear in all selected companies. Any updates to shared contact fields (e.g., name, email, phone) apply across all linked entities.

Important: If the contact already exists in multiple companies as duplicates, you’ll need to merge them before assigning. See Bulk Merging Contacts below.

Bulk Merging Contacts

The Bulk Merge Contacts tool simplifies the process of consolidating duplicate contacts across multiple companies into one primary record. Here's how it works:

Eligibility Rules

You’ll only see the Merge Contacts option if:

• You have access to all companies associated with the selected contacts.
• The integration in use supports UI merging.
• No completed tax returns exist for the contacts while tax returns are active.
• At least one eligible primary contact can be chosen.

Contacts or companies that aren’t eligible won’t appear in the selection list.

Integration Specific Overview 

Inter-company merge – Used when you have duplicate contacts across two or more companies. This lets you consolidate them into one shared Multi-Company Contact.

Intra-company merge – Used when you have duplicate contacts within the same company. In some integrations, this must be done directly in the accounting system (e.g. Xero), for others, this is only supported by manual migration (e.g. Sage Intacct & NetSuite)

Summary

Xero

Useful tips when merging Xero contacts:

•  Verify the correct Contact is attached to the Tenancy - After merging, check that the primary contact is correctly linked to the relevant tenancy in Re-Leased. 
• Manually update Invoices from the Merged Contact - If invoices were previously associated with the archived contact, you may need to update the Related Property or Tenancy.

QuickBooks Online

NetSuite

Sage Intacct

Standalone Accounting

How to Steps

1. Open the Bulk Merge Screen
   • Navigate to the Contacts list view.
   • Open the Merge Contacts page..

   • 

2. Review & Select Contacts
   • Contact category is auto-selected and fixed.
   • Ineligible companies are removed from the list.
3. Choose the Primary Contact
   • Tick a contact to reveal the Primary Contact option.
   • Set the primary record; others will be merged into it as sources.
   • Only one primary contact can be selected.
4. Validate & Merge
   • Click Merge to start.
   • The system runs pre-validation checks.
   • If no valid merge is possible, an error will be shown (e.g., “0 companies support merges”).
     • Adjust your selections to resolve any errors.

   • 

5. Confirm Merge
   • Preview shows:
     • The primary contact.
     • Which contacts will be archived.
   • All secondary contacts will be listed.
6. Complete & Review
   • The merge runs in the background.
   • You’ll receive a success message: “Contact(s) merged successfully.”
   • Validation errors, if any, will display in a red alert modal with details.
   • All linked data will remain with the primary contact.