Merge Payees

Merge payees when two names really represent the same real-world payee and you want one canonical record going forward.

Open the merge flow from a payee row with Merge Into Another Payee.

How the merge works #

The payee you start from is the source payee. The payee you choose as the destination is the target payee.

After a successful merge:

• the source payee is removed
• the target payee keeps the combined history
• compatible imported aliases move to the target payee

What the preview shows #

Before you confirm, Common Cents loads a merge preview.

That preview can show how many of these will move to the target payee:

• transactions
• income sources
• expected income events
• imported aliases

It also explains the default-category result.

If the target payee already has a default category, it keeps that category.

If the target payee does not have one but the source payee does, the target inherits the source payee’s default category.

Alias conflicts and duplicates #

Some alias situations are safe, and some block the merge.

• If an alias already belongs to the target payee, Common Cents skips that duplicate.
• If an alias conflicts with another payee or with a payee name, Common Cents treats that as a blocking conflict.

When blocking alias conflicts exist, the merge cannot continue until you clean those up first.

What the merge updates #

When the merge succeeds, Common Cents updates the source payee references so the target payee becomes the one canonical record.

That includes references in places like:

• transactions
• income sources
• expected income events
• compatible imported aliases

Undo support #

Payee merges are undoable. If you merge the wrong pair, you can use undo instead of manually rebuilding everything.

When not to merge #

Do not merge payees just because they are related.

Merge only when they are actually the same payee and you want all current and future activity to belong to one shared identity.