Handle possible duplicate Expense receipts

Overview

• Once an Expense receipt is READY, MiniTill can search Xero for likely matching transactions using merchant, total, date, and payment-account context.
• When candidates are found, the review page shows Possible duplicate in Xero.
• Use existing transaction links the receipt to the chosen existing Xero bank transaction and then attaches the original receipt.
• Create anyway intentionally overrides the duplicate warning and creates a new Xero transaction.
• Known-only automation stops when a possible duplicate exists; it does not choose for the user.

When to use this

• Use duplicate review when the company-card/bank feed may already have imported the purchase into Xero.

Step-by-step

1. Review the candidate's merchant, amount, date, and reference.
2. If it is the same purchase, choose Use existing transaction.
3. If it is genuinely different, choose Create anyway.
4. Confirm the receipt attachment completes.
5. Do not create an additional transaction merely because the receipt arrived later than the bank feed.

Common mistakes

• Do not assume a same-amount transaction is automatically the same purchase; verify date/merchant/reference.
• Do not choose Create anyway just to bypass the warning without checking the candidate.

Troubleshooting

• If duplicate checking is unavailable because Xero is disconnected, restore Xero before relying on automatic duplicate protection.
• If an existing transaction was linked but attachment failed, retry the attachment rather than relinking/creating.