Customer Name conflicts can arise if multiple WA customers exist with same name (and different email address)

[thelontx]

Identified by IUVA.

Root issues:
Quickbooks and WildApricot, have chosen to use different unique keys for Customer Name. WildApricot uses Email. Quickbooks uses Display Name. To find the QBO customer we use Display Name, since that is the unique key that the destination system (Quickbooks) uses.
In a scenario where multiple customers exist in WA with the same name, but different email address, QBWA will use the first/original customer for posting QBO invoices. If it is truly a 2nd person (and not just a different email for the same person), it can result in all the invoices/payments being posted under a single QBO customer.

Workaround:
Use WA ID as part of the "Quickbooks Display Name". This ensures they remain unique. This is supported today. Example: "{Display Name}-{User Id}" can be used for the QBWA config for Quickbooks Display Name format.
Downside: all QBO names include user IDs. Also, may require clean-up/data conversion if this convention is not already used.

If the workaround is not acceptable to a client, a feature may need to be developed. Components/considerations of the potential feature:

• Change QBWA to include Email in the search criteria
• Implement a config choice for error handling (when a duplicate name, but different email is found)
• When this type of duplicate name is found, execute the chosen error handling config choice
• Examples of possible config choices for error handling:

1. Always post to the QBO name, even if the email address is different.
2. Always create a new QBO customer name (with an appended suffix letter/number/phrase) if a different email address exists -- what happens if it is the same person, but they just updated their email address?
3. Prevent invoice creation and post as an error in the QBWA summary email --> allow the client to resolve manually.

NOTE: An alternate approach to use a custom QBO field to hold the WA User ID is also possible. See issue #82 However, there are limitations to the number of custom fields in QBO; some clients may have already used their limit. Additionally, this increases the complexity of implementation and data conversion as the custom field would need to be created AND any existing QBO customer records would need to be updated with the WA User ID.

[asirota]

I like number 3 as the feature to prevent invoice creation, add to summary email potential remediation options

1. Turn on UserID token in Display name as a config for QBWA
2. Manually distinguish WA contact name and rerun (one off basis resolution rather than go forward)