What happens if I have duplicate company records in Procore's Company Directory?
Answer
If you discover that there are multiple entries for a single company in the Company Directory, it may be because is typically because Procore was designed to allow users, with the appropriate permissions, to add new companies to projects (see Add a Company to the Project Directory). For every new company added to a project, a matching record is also created at the company level. For organizations managing multiple construction projects in Procore, this ensures that all of the companies that have been added to your projects are captured at the company level.
Additionally, when companies are invited to bid from the Procore Construction Network, the company is automatically added to your Company Directory as a "Connected" company. See What happens when companies and users are added from the Procore Construction Network to the Company Directory?
How Duplicated Company Entries Occur
When you add a new vendor/company record to a project's Directory tool, the system automatically adds that vendor/company record to both the Project level Directory tool and the Company level Directory tool. If your company permits multiple users to create vendor/company records on their respective projects, it is important for those users to be aware that vendor/company records can appear to be duplicated, if you do not pay attention to how any existing vendor/company records in the Company Directory are spelled.
EXAMPLE
Entering similar spellings on different project's will lead to the appearance of duplicated' data, as follows:
Project A's Directory Tool
Jack, a project manager, added a new vendor/company record to Project A's Directory and named the company, 'Star Framing.'Project B's Directory Tool
Jane, also a project manager, added the same vendor/company to Project B's Directory, only she named the company, 'Star Framing, LLC.'Company Directory Tool
Since both project manager's used similar, but unique, spelling when creating the vendor/company, the system created two (2) unique vendor/company records in your organization's Company level Directory tool. One for 'Star Framing' and one for 'Star Framing, LLC.'
Preventing the appearance of 'duplicated' entries ensures that all of the users, office, bidder info, insurance info, and change history for the vendor/company is stored in a single record (instead of splitting data between two (2) or more records). This ensures that your bid processes, insurance tracking, and reporting remain accurate. The most common ways for duplicated entries to occur include:
- Multiple entries for the same company (e.g., a subcontractor, contractor, outside vendor) are inadvertently created in the Company Directory when different users add the same company (with different spellings) to two different projects.
- Another source of multiple entries can be the result of similar spelling issues during the vendor import process. To learn more about the vendor import process, contact your Procore point of contact.
Should you discover the presence of 'duplicated' vendor/company records in your system, follow the steps in Merge Companies to resolve the issue.
What if One of the companies is "Connected"?
Connected Companies are created when inviting companies to bid from the Procore Construction Network. At this time, you cannot merge Connected and unconnected companies into a single record. However, there are other ways that you can manage duplicates. See How are duplicate companies handled between the Directory tool and Procore Construction Network?
Important Note for Accounts Using ERP Integrations
If your company's Procore account has been integrated with a third-party Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, it is also possible to introduce duplicate entries when data in synced between your ERP system and Procore.
When your Procore account is integrated with a third-party ERP system, it is very important to eliminate multiple entries from the Company Directory. This is because vendors records in the ERP system must share a direct link to its corresponding company entry in Procore. This one-to-one relationship (i.e., vendor-to-company) ensures data integrity between the two systems. For instructions, see: