Step 4 of the set up wizard will give you the opportunity to manually merge records. This will give you a chance to match up any records that Inform Direct did not automatically associate.

For instance Inform Direct would not automatically match up Mr Frank Brown (a shareholder and Director) with Frank Michael Brown (a PSC).

If you know that Mr Frank Brown (a shareholder and Director) is the same person as Frank Michael Brown (a PSC) then click on the yellow chain link icon marked 'Merge with another record'. This will then give you the various options seen on the image below.

By Selecting 'Merge with selected record' this will then link Frank correctly across all roles:

You can cancel the 'Merge with another record' action by clicking on the red cancel button. This will return everything to how it was.

Note: Inform Direct will not let you merge a director with another director, nor can you merge individual and corporate shareholders.

Once merged you can then select how you wish for the person to be displayed, in this example we can select if we wish for Frank to be displayed as Mr Frank Brown or Mr Frank Micheal Brown (see below).

Note: In this example there are also discrepancies with the date of birth and residential address, you will need to select the correct records from the drop down. This will not correct the date of birth at Companies House, for help with this please see What If the Date of Birth is Incorrect?

At the end of the import Inform Direct will then look to make any corrective filings at Companies House. These can be submitted immediately or in certain cases resolved later as a data discrepancy from the company dashboard. See How to import a company without submitting changes to Companies House.

Inform Direct has flagged a possible duplicate person during import. Do I have to merge, and what happens if I don't?

No. Inform Direct automatically merges people across their different roles in most cases, so you usually don't need to do anything. Merging manually is only needed where Inform Direct has not matched the records itself. To decline, simply don't click the yellow chain link 'Merge with another record' icon and carry on with the wizard. If you have opened the merge options and change your mind, click the red cancel button and everything returns to how it was.

If two records are left unmerged, the only effect is that a change made to the person in one role will not automatically update the other roles they hold, so you would need to make the change on each record. Records can be merged later if you decide you want them linked.

Also known as: possible duplicate person flagged on import, do I have to merge, don't want to merge records, decline merge, skip merge with another record, what happens if I don't merge, merge records later, duplicate person prompt during Companies House import, how do I say no to merge.