# Companies Identification Criteria is not clear

**URL:** <https://forum.mautic.org/t/companies-identification-criteria-is-not-clear/31276>\
**Category:** Product Support\
**Created:** [March 14, 2024, 4:14pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/companies-identification-criteria-is-not-clear/31276 "2024-03-14T16:14:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![miteshgala](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/miteshgala/32/294_2.png) [@miteshgala](https://forum.mautic.org/u/miteshgala)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2024, 4:14pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/companies-identification-criteria-is-not-clear/31276/1 "2024-03-14T16:14:03Z")

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I am trying to understand exactly how Mautic identified duplicate companies and merges them. The documentation ([Companies — Mautic Documentation 0.1 documentation](https://docs.mautic.org/en/5.x/companies/companies_overview.html#company-duplicates)) states 2 possibilities:

1. The Company name field is a unique identifier by default. You can choose any other Company field as unique identifier in the **Custom Fields** section.

2. Mautic identifies Companies strictly through a matching criteria based on **Company Name** , **City** , **Country or State**. If a city or a country isn’t delivered as an identifying fields to identify a Contact, the Company won’t match.

When running an import, which method is used?

Under what circumstances is #2 used?

**Your software**  
My Mautic version is: 4.4.11  
My PHP version is: 7.4.33  
My Database type and version is: 10.6.16-MariaDB