Merge two or more of your open cases for the same client into a single surviving case with the combined principal. Ordinary pricing is recalculated from the combined amount and age profile, while an intentional special rate on the winner case is kept. The feature is intended for several invoices against one debtor, but the platform does not enforce that - the candidate list is not filtered by debtor, so check the debtor yourself before you confirm - on the acceptance page if you search there, or at step 1 of the modal. This guide covers when to merge, the eligibility rules, and the 3-step merge flow.

Consolidate eligible open cases into one case, so you work a single combined claim instead of parallel threads. It is intended for several invoices against the same debtor - but the eligibility rules key on the client, not the debtor, so you have to check the debtor yourself. After the merge, the winner case shows the combined principal and the resulting success fee; the absorbed cases stop being workable and carry the status Merged.

Merge cases when:

Do not merge when:

These rules decide which cases you are allowed to merge. The full set is checked only when you confirm the merge. The candidate search narrows the list by client, currency and lifecycle, and neither the search nor the pricing preview replaces that validation. Clearing both does not establish that every merge rule has passed, so a set can reach the final step and still be rejected there. The entry points check even less: the acceptance-page link always appears, the Actions menu entry appears whenever the case you are on is itself in an eligible lifecycle state, and neither of them checks that a candidate actually exists. Every selected case must pass all of the following:

Note what is not on that list: there is no same-debtor rule. Cases for two different debtors of the same client are merge-eligible, so checking the debtor is yours to do.

Go to Cases Received in the partner portal and open the case you want to merge from. There are two entry points for starting a merge - both lead to the same modal.

When you open the acceptance page for a Pending Verification case, a collapsible link labelled "or merge this into an existing case →" appears below any warnings. The link is always shown - it does not mean the platform has already found a case to merge with. Expand it and search by debtor name or case reference, select a candidate, then click "Preview merge →" to jump to the pricing preview step.

This is the most common path because it surfaces the merge option exactly when you are deciding whether to accept a new case. If your search returns nothing, that search found no candidate - it does not prove none exists, so try the debtor name and the case reference before concluding. With no candidate, continue with the standard accept / request info / decline flow instead.

On any case in an eligible lifecycle state, open the Actions dropdown on the case detail page. A "Merge with another case..." option appears at the top of the menu. It is shown based on the case's status alone - it does not check that a candidate exists, or that any candidate is for the same debtor, so you can open the modal and find nothing to merge with. Use this when you want to merge cases that are already Active or Paused.

The current case is locked as the anchor. Use the search input to find the case you want to merge with - search by debtor name or case reference. The list is filtered by client, currency and lifecycle. It is not filtered by debtor - it can include other cases for the same client against a different debtor, and the debtor name is only a search term. Check the debtor name on the candidate before you continue; the merge cannot be undone. Appearing in this list is not a guarantee the merge will go through: the search filters on client, currency and lifecycle only, and the rest is checked later.

Select a candidate and click "Next → Preview pricing".

The preview shows:

The winner case is determined automatically. Lifecycle priority comes first: Active cases take precedence, then Paused, then pre-active cases (Pending Verification / Needs Additional Details). Within that top tier the platform prefers a case that has not been through a currency conversion, then takes the earliest due date. It will not drop to a lower tier to avoid a converted case - so if every case in the top tier has been converted, the merge is rejected rather than resolved by picking a lower-tier case. You cannot override the selection from the modal. The preview is read-only and does not make any changes. Click "Next → Confirm".

The confirmation step summarises what will happen: the loser case stops being workable and carries the status Merged, and the winner absorbs all invoices with the combined amounts shown.

Check the irreversibility checkbox before the merge button activates:

"I understand this merge is permanent and cannot be undone. Merged cases become read-only."

Click "Merge cases".

On success you are redirected to the winner case, where a confirmation banner confirms the merge. The winner case shows the combined principal and the resulting success fee - for a winner with a special rate, that is the kept agreed rate, not a new standard rate.

Loser cases are never deleted. If a client or colleague asks about an old case reference, navigating to it will show the merged state and point to the winner. For the full lifecycle context, see Case Lifecycle (Deep Dive).

The principal is always combined. With ordinary pricing, the success fee is recalculated from the combined merged principal and its blended age profile using the standard SDCA pricing brackets, and the fee percentage and fee amounts on the winner update accordingly. The fee may be higher than the individual case fees if some invoices are older than 12 or 24 months.

If the winner case has an intentional special rate or an accepted quote, that rate is kept by default, together with its agreement terms. A losing case does not bring its own agreement into the merge. The pricing preview identifies the kept rate, and if that rate cannot be established the merge is refused. Only Debitura staff can explicitly choose standard repricing instead, after a fresh pricing preview - you cannot remove an agreement by merging.

If anything in this section conflicts with the Standard Debt Collection Agreement (SDCA), the SDCA is the legally binding source of truth.

The following are not supported in the current version: