---
title: "Duplicate Screen: Catch Look-Alike Records"
description: "Add a Duplicate Screen enrichment that flags look-alike duplicate transactions, same account, amount, and description within a window, before they reach your destination."
section: "Enrichments"
canonical: "https://banksync.io/docs/enrichments/duplicates"
---

Sometimes the same real-world transaction arrives twice as two different records — a provider re-ingestion, a bank reposting a transaction with a new reference, an import overlap. The **Duplicate Screen** enrichment catches these look-alikes while your data syncs and flags them before they inflate your numbers.

BankSync already removes true duplicates automatically: records that arrive twice with the same provider record id never sync twice, no enrichment needed. The Duplicate Screen exists for the sneakier case — **the same transaction under two different record ids**, which no id check can catch.

## What counts as a duplicate

Two records syncing in the same batch are treated as look-alikes when they have:

- the **same account**,
- the **same amount**, and
- the **same normalized description** — normalization ignores store numbers, reference digits, and similar noise, so POS 1234 COFFEE CO and POS 5678 COFFEE CO compare equal,
- with dates at most the **window** apart (2 days by default, up to 7).

The **earliest record always survives untouched**. Only the later look-alikes are flagged (or suppressed, if you opt in).

> **Transactions only:** 'The Duplicate Screen needs a date, an amount, an account, a description to normalize, and the Duplicate Flag field to write into — which is the transactions shape. Other data types show as unavailable in the data-type selector with the reason, rather than letting you build a screen that could never match. Balance snapshots in particular repeat the same account and amount by design; flagging those as duplicates would be wrong, not helpful.'

## Flag by default, suppress by choice

The default action is **Flag**: the later record gets `possible-duplicate` written into its **Duplicate Flag** field and still syncs. Map the Duplicate Flag column in your field mappings and you can filter or spot-check flagged rows in your destination — nothing is ever silently missing.

> **Two identical coffees are not a duplicate:** 'Buying the same $4.50 coffee at the same cafe twice in one day produces two records that look identical to any matching rule — and both are real. That is exactly why the default flags instead of suppressing: you glance at flagged rows and keep the legitimate repeats. Switch the action to Suppress only if your data genuinely cannot contain honest repeats within the window.'

With **Suppress**, later look-alikes never reach the destination at all. The trade-off is the same as with Filters: a wrong call means a real transaction silently missing from your books.

## Setting it up

1. **Create the enrichment** — On the Enrichments tab, click "Add an enrichment" and choose Duplicate Screen in the
   Guard data group.
2. **Set the window** — Keep the 2-day default for most data. Widen it (up to 7 days) only if your duplicate
   source posts the second copy late.
3. **Pick the action** — Keep Flag unless you are certain (see the warning above).
4. **Map the Duplicate Flag column** — In the feed's field mappings, map Duplicate Flag to a destination column so flagged rows
   are visible where you work.
5. **Attach and enable** — In the Dependencies tab, tick the feeds to screen, then flip the switch to Enabled.

![The Duplicate Screen configuration form: a Matching window (days) field set to 2 with the note that look-alike records share the same account, amount, and description, and a When a duplicate is found section with Flag (recommended) selected — marking the later record as a possible duplicate — and a Suppress option carrying the warning that suppression permanently excludes records from your destination.](https://cdn.banksync.io/screenshots/enrichments/dedupe-form.112683f2aa77a681.png "The Duplicate Screen: the 2-day window and the Flag action selected over Suppress.")

Preview the result in the feed's Live Preview: the Enrichments tab shows how many records the screen caught, and in Flag mode the Duplicate Flag cells show up in the Data tab.

## Related guides

- [Transfer Matching](/docs/enrichments/transfer-matching): the other integrity guard — opposite-sign pairs across accounts.
- [Filters](/docs/enrichments/filters): exclude records by explicit condition instead of similarity.
- [Configuring field mappings](/docs/bank-feeds/field-mappings): map the Duplicate Flag column.