Salesforce's duplicate and matching rules stop many new duplicates when someone creates or edits a record. They do not clean up the duplicates already in your org, a merge takes three records at most, and Salesforce has no unmerge. LiveCRM finds and merges the duplicates you already have, chooses surviving values field by field, and can undo any merge.
Salesforce duplicate management has three parts.
Each duplicate rule can use up to three matching rules, and each object can have five active matching rules. All of it is included in your Salesforce licence.
It prevents more than it cleans. Duplicate rules act at the moment of entry. Records arriving through lead conversion or a Recycle Bin restore bypass the rules, and none of it touches the duplicates you already have unless you run jobs and merge the results yourself.
A merge takes three records at a time. The limit is three records per merge, master included, in both the user interface and the API. A company entered six times takes three merges.
Values come from the master unless you pick them. The master record's values win field by field unless someone chooses otherwise for that merge. That choice is made per merge, by hand, and is not saved as a rule.
There is no unmerge. The merged-away records go to the Recycle Bin for about 15 days. Restoring them brings the records back, but their opportunities, contacts and cases stay attached to the master and have to be moved back by hand.
Custom objects can be found but not merged. Duplicate jobs can report duplicates on custom objects, but Salesforce's compare-and-merge does not cover them.
| Salesforce duplicate management | LiveCRM | |
|---|---|---|
| Catches new duplicates | At the moment of entry: block or alert | On a schedule you set: new duplicates are found and queued for approval |
| Finds duplicates already in the org | Duplicate jobs, in higher editions | Yes, on any scope you filter |
| Records per merge | Three, master included | The whole duplicate group, approved once |
| Which values survive | Master wins unless picked by hand per merge | Survivorship rules saved per field, applied every time |
| Approval | The person merging | A person approves each group before it merges |
| Undo | Restore losers from the Recycle Bin; children stay on the master | Unmerge restores records and moves children back, for 90 days |
| Objects | Accounts, contacts, leads, cases | Accounts, contacts, leads |
| Cost | Included in your licence | From $12,000 a year, priced by CRM writes |
If your org is small, duplicates are rare, and most of them come from people typing new records, Salesforce's duplicate rules may be all you need. Turn them on, tune the matching rules, and merge the occasional pair by hand.
You need more than native tools when you already have a backlog, when duplicates arrive through imports, integrations or an acquisition, or when a wrong merge would cost you an opportunity history you cannot rebuild. LiveCRM's unmerge restores the merged-away records and moves every child record back onto them, one lookup at a time, and reports anything it could not restore.
Most teams use both: Salesforce's rules to stop new duplicates at the door, and LiveCRM to clear what got through and keep it clear.
Not fully. You can restore the merged-away records from the Recycle Bin for about 15 days, but their related records stay on the master. Third-party tools exist to put them back.
They work well together. Salesforce's rules act at the moment someone saves a record. LiveCRM catches what gets past them, from imports, integrations and conversions, on a schedule you set, and clears the duplicates already in the org.
A run groups every duplicate it finds, and each group merges as one decision, however many records it holds.
See it on your own CRM
The readiness scan reads your records and reports what it finds. It writes nothing, and you keep the report.