Duplicates in Bitrix24 (Alaio) are repeated cards for the same client: two leads with one phone number, a contact and a company sharing an email, two deals for one enquiry. The built-in duplicate control catches matches when a card is created and can bulk-merge, but duplicates that enter the base any other way stay alive. Here is where they come from, what the stock tool covers, why the CRM sometimes merges cards on its own and how to stop it, how to merge contacts by hand, and how to close the problem systematically.

Where do CRM duplicates come from?

Four sources. Repeated touches: a client fills a website form, then calls, then writes in a messenger — each channel creates its own lead. Imports: a legacy base loaded without matching against existing records. Integrations: telephony and mail create entities by their own rules and do not always see each other. Manual entry: a manager types the phone as "020 7946…" while the base stores "+44 20 7946…" — different strings to a search engine. The last case is the sneakiest: formally there is no duplicate, factually there is. That is why data normalization is half the battle: the Format phone number: custom prefix robot brings a number to "prefix + digits" right inside your flows, and Format entity phone numbers: custom prefix does the same for every number already stored on a card.

What does the built-in duplicate control cover?

The stock mechanism works in three places. On card creation it warns about matches by name, phone or email. In the lead/contact/company list, the gear menu has Duplicate search: it finds groups of similar records and offers to merge each group. On import there is a "skip duplicates" option. Merging moves fields, activities, history and links into one card; conflicting values must be picked by hand. What it does not do: it does not check duplicates when a card moves through the pipeline, does not block work on a repeated entity, only compares near-identical values, and offers no custom matching rules. A duplicate that slips past the creation check lives on unnoticed.

Why does Bitrix24 merge contacts and companies on its own?

Because contacts and companies have an automatic duplicate search, and it switches itself on. The first time an employee with edit and delete rights opens the contact or company list, Bitrix24 schedules a daily check for that employee. At first it only searches: it finds groups of records whose fields all match the duplicate control settings and shows a notification with the count. Click Enable in that notification, or pick any interval in the settings, and from then on the CRM merges such groups by itself without asking. The oldest card stays, the others are deleted. Records where even one value differs are never merged automatically; Bitrix24 leaves them for manual review. For leads, the automatic search is off by default.

One detail matters: the setting belongs to each employee and to each entity type, separately for leads, contacts and companies. The check runs with the rights of whoever turned it on: a regular employee merges only the records they can access, an administrator merges the whole base. So "it is off for me, but contacts still get merged" is a common situation: a colleague has it on.

How do I turn off automatic duplicate merging?

Open CRM, go to the contact list, click the gear icon and choose Find and merge duplicates. Set the frequency to Never and save. Repeat this in the company list and, if anyone turned it on, in leads: each type has its own setting.

Then go through the employees who can edit and delete contacts. Anyone who once agreed to automatic merging keeps it running until they switch it off on their own account. Start with administrators and department heads: their checks reach the most records.

If the CRM has already merged something it should not have, the deleted duplicates are listed in the CRM history and can be restored from the Recycle Bin. After restoring, check which card the activities and deals point to: a merge moves them to the primary card.

How do I merge contacts manually?

In the contact list, tick two or more records, choose Merge in the action panel and apply. Bitrix24 asks you to pick the primary card: it stays, the others are deleted. Matching values carry over on their own; for values that differ, you choose which one to keep, and for phones and emails you can keep all of them. The left side shows what the final card will look like. Finish with Merge, or Merge and edit if the card needs a fix right away; Later cancels the merge.

Companies, leads, deals, invoices, estimates and smart process items merge the same way. The required right is the same as for automatic merging: edit and delete for that entity type. The stock duplicate control has no search for deals, so duplicate deals are caught differently; see the separate article on duplicate deals.

Manual merging is fine for one-off cases. If managers keep creating a second contact on top of an existing one, fix the cause: the Find contact robot looks up the card by phone or email inside a workflow before the CRM creates a new one.

How do I merge duplicates without losing data?

Before a mass merge: close open activities on the duplicate cards, agree which card is the "primary" (usually the oldest — it holds the history), and export the base in case you need a rollback. Then run the stock duplicate search by phone and email — the most reliable keys; review name-based merges manually, since namesakes are not duplicates. After merging, check the deals: they must point to the surviving card. Inside workflows, use the Find contact robot — before creating a new entity it looks up an existing contact by phone and returns the ID, so the flow attaches the new enquiry to the found card instead of creating a duplicate. Likewise Find deal locates the client's open deal so a repeat enquiry does not spawn a new one.

How do I stop duplicates systematically?

Manual duplicate-search runs are cleanup, not prevention. The systematic fix is checking at the moment of work: the Duplicates No More app runs the check when a manager moves a card through the pipeline or edits it, and the entity does not move on until the duplicate is merged or deleted. Add bulk scanning of the whole base and two merge modes — automatic for conflict-free records, manual review for disputed ones. Three protection layers work together: robots normalizing data at the entry point, workflows looking up existing entities before creating new ones, and Duplicates No More blocking pipeline moves until conflicts are resolved.

Checklist

Normalize phones and emails at the entry point; keep the creation-time check on; teach your workflows to search for existing cards before creating new ones; run a bulk duplicate search monthly; and for a blocking check on every stage move, install Duplicates No More from the Bitrix24 Market — the install is free.