Reviewing possible duplicate households

When someone applies to join publicly, the platform screens for likely duplicate households before anything else is created. This article covers what triggers a pause, where to review it, and what each resolution actually does.

Screening runs as part of the public /join flow, before any household or invoice is created. If the applicant looks like a possible match to an existing household, the application is paused in a review queue instead of proceeding straight to a waitlist position or application-fee invoice.

A pause happens on either:

• One "strong" signal: the same email, a verified alternate email, the same phone number, or the same mailing address as an existing household.

• Two or more "weaker" signals together (for example, same surname plus same ZIP, combined with something else).

A single weak signal on its own (say, just a matching surname and ZIP, with nothing else) never pauses anything. The applicant proceeds straight through to a waitlist position or application-fee invoice, exactly as if no match had been found. It isn't invisible, though: it's recorded as a soft warning so staff still have a trace of the near-miss (see below).

Open Household reviews from the dashboard's Household reviews card, or search for it (Cmd-K). This page is gated to manager/admin. Narrower than general directory access, so some staff who can view households won't see this page.

Each pending review shows the applicant's details, the candidate household(s) it matched against, and which signals triggered the match.

Enter a Decision note describing what you checked, then choose one of three dispositions:

• Not a duplicate. Clears the review. The applicant can resubmit and continue to payment.

• Existing household / invite instead (internally called linked), records your decision and note only. It does not link, merge, or invite anyone automatically. If the right outcome is inviting the applicant into the existing household, or consolidating a duplicate prospect record, you still have to do that yourself. See Household ownership, invitations, and merging duplicate records.

• Needs financial review. Escalates for manual review, typically when the match involves a household with billing history that makes a merge non-trivial.

A decision note is required by team policy for the linked and needs financial review dispositions.

Below the pending reviews, the same page has a Possible duplicates (low confidence) section. These are applications that matched exactly one weak signal: nothing paused, nothing to approve or deny. Each entry shows the household that was created, the existing household it weakly resembles, and which single signal triggered it, so you can take a look if you want to, but there's no required action and no disposition to record. If a later application from a related household collects a second signal or a strong one, that one does pause as a normal pending review above.

Clearing a review as not a duplicate only applies to the specific set of candidate households that were already reviewed. If a later submission from the same or a similar applicant matches a different candidate household, that reopens a new pending review. Clearing one match doesn't blanket-clear the applicant going forward.

Soft warnings still have no alert of their own — they only appear lower on the Household reviews page. Pending reviews show up on the dashboard's Household reviews card (and stay reachable via Cmd-K); nothing else notifies staff that a soft warning was recorded.