How to Dedupe Deals and Opportunities

A duplicate deal counts the same revenue twice, splits its notes and activities, and can leave two reps working one opportunity. In Dedupely, you dedupe deals like any other object: build a Duplicate Search on the fields stored on the deal, check the matches carefully, set Merge Rules, then merge. Because deals carry revenue, stages and owners, review them before you merge in bulk. You can dedupe HubSpot Deals, Salesforce Opportunities, Pipedrive Deals and Close CRM Opportunities.

Why do duplicate deals happen?

• Integrations and forms create a new deal for every request, even when one is already open.
• Two reps open a deal for the same opportunity without knowing about each other.
• Imports add deals that already exist, because the file has no deal ID.
• Duplicate companies or contacts each get their own deal for the same opportunity. Dedupe your companies first: once they're merged, their deals sit under one company, which makes duplicate deals easier to spot when you review them. See How to Dedupe Companies and Accounts.

Which fields should you match deals on?

Dedupely matches deals on the fields stored on the deal itself, not on the company or contact it's associated with. Use at least three:

Remember that blank values never match. A deal without an amount drops out of a search that matches on Amount, so build a second search for those, without Amount, and review it closely.

How to narrow a deal search with filters

Filters keep a deal search focused on the deals worth reviewing. For example:

• Only recent deals: field Create Date, Applies to one or more, operator is within the past (days), e.g. 90.
• Only open deals: field Deal Stage, Applies to all, operator is not equal to, terms Closed won and Closed lost, with the term setting on All. Review closed deals in a second pass: duplicate closed-won deals count the same revenue twice in your reports.

See Filters.

How to review deal matches

Deals carry revenue, so check each match before merging:

1. Open View Match Details and compare the records side by side.
2. Add Visible Fields like Deal Stage, Close Date, Pipeline and Create Date, so you can see the differences that matter.
3. Reject matches that are separate deals, like a renewal and a new purchase with the same name and amount.
4. Send to Manual Review the matches the deal owner needs to decide on. See Manual Review.

Which deal should survive?

Set a Primary Record rule in Merge Rules:

Check the Merge Preview column before you merge, especially the stage, close date and owner.

What happens to activities when deals merge?

Activities, notes and associations move to the deal that survives, except where your CRM's API doesn't allow them to be moved:

• Pipedrive: activities, notes and linked records move to the deal that survives. Archived deals can't be merged.
• Salesforce: Salesforce has no merge for Opportunities, so Dedupely updates the surviving one, re-points its child records to it and deletes the others. Emails, files, notes, contact roles and product lines on the others don't move.
• Close CRM: activities belong to the Lead or Contact, never to the Opportunity, so merging Opportunities doesn't move any activity. Dedupely copies the field values onto the Opportunity you keep; attachments on the others don't move.
• HubSpot: HubSpot's own merge rules apply, usually including a new record ID for the merged deal. See the HubSpot Deduplication Guide.

Example setup

A sales team on HubSpot finds duplicate deals created by a form integration and by reps.

1. Dedupe companies first, with Domain Root on the company domain.
2. Search 1: Deal Name: Similar Words (Any Order), Ignored terms deal, renewal · Amount: Exact · Deal Owner: Exact · Filter: Create Date is within the past (days) 180, Applies to one or more.
3. Visible Fields: Deal Stage, Close Date, Pipeline, Create Date.
4. Merge Rules: Primary Record set to Last Updated Record.
5. Review: reject renewals, send unclear matches to Manual Review for the deal owner, then merge 1–2 matches and check them in HubSpot.
6. Automate: Auto Match on Search 1, notifying at 5 matches, so a person checks new duplicate deals before they're merged.

Common mistakes

• Merging deals before companies. Duplicate companies hide which deals belong together.
• Matching on deal name alone. Many deals share names like "Annual plan" or "Renewal".
• Merging renewals into the original deal. Same name and amount doesn't mean same opportunity. Reject them.
• Bulk merging without looking at stages. Check the stage and close date in the Merge Preview first.
• Auto Merge on deals right away. Start with Auto Match, so a person sees new duplicate deals first.

FAQs about deduping deals

• Which deal objects can Dedupely dedupe? HubSpot Deals, Salesforce Opportunities, Pipedrive Deals and Close CRM Opportunities. Archived Pipedrive deals can't be merged.
• Can Dedupely match deals on their associated company? No. Deals are matched on the fields stored on the deal itself.
• Can I merge a deal with a contact or a company? No. Dedupely merges records within one object.
• Can I undo a deal merge? Yes, within 30 days for most merges, from Merge History. Undo is for records that weren't duplicates, so treat every merge as permanent. See Undo a Merge. For older merges, see I Merged the Wrong Records: What Now?
• Do deal records count toward my plan? Yes. Every record in every object you turn on counts toward your plan's record limit.