1. About
Whether you're using InventoryIQ or Sales-based COGS tracking, you can merge products and group them together under one ‘primary’ product. This is especially useful when you have identical or similar products coming from multiple sources—like Shopify and Amazon.
Merging products improves your inventory accuracy and ensures correct COGS calculations across platforms.
If you're using the Sales-based COGS method, merging products will apply cost updates to the merged products.
If you are using InventoryIQ, merging products treats the merged products as the same SKU for purposes of calculating FIFO COGS.
In this article, we'll explain how to easily merge and unmerge products, how our Merge recommendations feature works to automate and optimize this process, and how merging products impacts your financials.
2. Merging products
You can easily merge products directly from your product list in Finaloop.
Merging products in Finaloop, won’t impact your sales channels and is only for purposes of managing these products in Finaloop.
NOTE: Merging products can affect your COGS numbers so review your products and and COGS carefully and make any necessary adjustments.
> To merge multiple products:
Navigate to Inventory > Products tab.
In the lower part of the screen, select the products you want to merge.
From the Actions dropdown, select Merge products.
In the upper part of the screen, select the product that is the primary product by clicking on Make Primary.
Click Save.
Once merged, you’ll see a success message on the screen. The product page will now show only the primary product.
Click the product line to open the screen and see the merged SKUs. You’ll see that the primary product also has a link icon next to it.
That’s it, the products are merged!
3. Unmerging products
> To unmerge products:
Navigate to Inventory > Products tab.
Select the merged product you want to unmerge.
From the Actions dropdown, select Merge products.
X the specific product/s to remove from the merge.
Click Save.
Note: You will not be able to merge or unmerge products that would have an impact on a closed year.
4. Merge recommendations
To save you time and reduce manual work, Finaloop automatically suggests product merges based on data from your connected platforms.
Our Merge recommendations feature analyzes product data and suggests merges based on patterns we've learned—saving you time and improving inventory accuracy.
How Merge Recommendations Work:
When you have merge recommendations, you’ll see this at the top of your inventory screens:
Click Tap to review to check them out.
Our system groups potential matches into three categories, from most confident to least:
Perfect match, Flexible match, and Smart match categories
Products with identical SKUs – Perfect match
Products with exactly the same SKU, even if their display names may be different.
👉 Example: “Blue Hoodie” and “Hoodie - Blue” both have SKU BLH123. These would be included in the Perfect match category.
Products with identical SKUs, plus a known prefix or suffix – Flexible match
Products with identical SKUs plus a known prefix or suffix from a marketplace (e.g., FBA or FBM).
👉 Example: BLH123-FBA and BLH123 would be included in the Flexible match category.
3. Potential product matches – Smart match
Products that don’t share identical SKUs, but are likely matches based on similarities in:
Product name,
ASIN, or
Product description
👉 Example: BLH123 and BL124 are both called “Blue Hoodie.” These would likely be included as a recommended Smart match.
These should be carefully reviewed before merging.
Auto-merge or review manually
You can decide how to handle these merge suggestions:
Auto-merge: Turn on this toggle for a specific category to let Finaloop automatically merge future matches. This is especially useful if you often add new products.
Review and merge yourself: Keep the toggle off to review each suggestion before merging. This gives you more control when needed but requires more hands-on management.
Note: The auto-merge option is only available for Perfect matches or Flexible matches. Smart matches require your review to make sure your inventory matches are all accurate.
Click on Merge log in the upper right corner to review a detailed log of all of the merge activity over time (both auto-merges and manual merges).
5. How merging products impacts your books
The steps to merge your products in Finaloop are similar whether you are using the sales based method or InventoryIQ to manage your COGS, but the impact that the merge will have on your books is different for each method.
Sales based method
When merging two or more products using the sales based COGS method, Finaloop will use the cost per unit of the primary product to apply to all merged products as well. If you change the cost of the primary product in Shopify or directly in Finaloop, this cost change will also impact all merged products.
InventoryIQ
Merged products are tracked as one SKU in your warehouse. When you merge two or more products in InventoryIQ, those products will be recorded in the relevant warehouses, under the Primary product.
In the example below, when you sell Black legos or Pink legos, the landed costs will be taken from the same batch of POs and will be treated the same for purposes of determining the COGS. In other words, each of the PO cost layers will be merged together for purposes of the FIFO COGS calculation.
Important note: If you're using recipes or assemblies, only those linked to the primary product will remain after merging. To avoid losing setup, merge before creating assemblies.
In other words, in the above example, if there were any recipes or assemblies relating to Pink legos, they would be disappear after the merge and will need to be created again if you unmerge these products later on. So, always merge products before adding recipes or assemblies to save yourself some unnecessary inputs.
Need Help?
Not sure which products to merge or how recommendations apply to you? Reach out to [email protected]—we’re here to help!