Every B2B CRM drifts. Accounts are created by hand, imported from events, typed in by sales reps in a hurry. A year later, the same customer exists three times under three spellings, a supplier that closed last spring still gets invoices, and nobody knows which address is the registered one. This guide sets out a method to clean company accounts against official registers, for French and Spanish companies, and to keep them clean afterwards.
The method relies on public registers: INSEE's Sirene directory for France and the BORME for Spain. Facts about them were checked on 9 October 2026.
What you'll learn
- Why matching on names fails, and what to match on instead
- A six-step clean-up you can run on an export
- Which fields to take from the register, and which to leave to your team
- How to keep the account base clean after the first pass
- What a register can't add to your CRM
Why names are the problem
Company names are written a dozen ways: with or without the legal form, with an accent or without, in capitals, with the trading name instead of the legal one. "Renault", "RENAULT SAS" and "Renault Group" might be one account or three. And a common name hides many different companies: a name search for "renault" in the State's company search API returns 10,000 results, the maximum it reports, and the first five named exactly RENAULT are not the carmaker.
So the first rule of a CRM clean-up is: match on a number, not on a name. For a French company that's the SIREN (nine digits). For a Spanish company, the stable registry key is the province plus the registry sheet, because the BORME doesn't publish the tax number.
The six-step clean-up
1. Export and add the identifier column
Export your company accounts with the fields you care about: name, address, any identifier you already hold (SIREN, SIRET, VAT number, NIF), owner and last activity. Add a column for the register key if you don't have one.
2. Recover numbers you already have
Many CRMs hold the number somewhere other than its field: on an invoice, in the billing system, in the VAT number. A French intra-community VAT number is FR, two check characters and the SIREN, so the last nine digits give you the SIREN directly. See the SIREN, SIRET and VAT formats.
Validate every number before you use it. A SIREN's ninth digit is a Luhn check digit, according to INSEE: invalid numbers are typing errors to fix, not companies to look up.
3. Find the missing numbers by search, carefully
For accounts with no number, search the register by name and city. Accept a match only when the name, the city and, ideally, the postcode agree, and send the rest to a person for review. A wrong automatic match is worse than no match: it attaches another company's facts to your customer.
4. Bring in the register's facts, with their date
For each matched account, take from the register:
- Legal name and legal form, as registered.
- Status: active or ceased for a French company (with the date), or the latest acts for a Spanish one (dissolution, extinction).
- Registered office.
- Activity code (the APE code in France). See the APE/NAF code explained.
- The date you checked, and the source.
Keep these in dedicated fields, separate from the fields your team edits. The register's name and your team's "display name" can both be right for different purposes.
5. Flag ceased and closed companies
Accounts whose company has ceased (France) or been extinguished (Spain) shouldn't sit among active customers. Don't delete them: past invoices and contracts still point to them. Mark them as closed, with the date and the source, and stop new activity on them. If the business continues under a new company, link the two accounts. See how to check whether a French company is still active.
6. Merge duplicates on the number
Once each account has its number, duplicates are easy to find: two accounts, same SIREN. Merge them, keeping the history of both. Watch the two French levels: several accounts with the same SIREN but different SIRETs may be different sites of one company, which you may want to keep as separate locations under one parent account.
Which fields belong to whom
| Field | Comes from | Who edits it |
|---|---|---|
| SIREN / registry sheet | Register | Nobody, once validated |
| Legal name, legal form | Register | Refreshed from the register |
| Status and its date | Register | Refreshed from the register |
| Registered office | Register | Refreshed from the register |
| Delivery and billing addresses | Your customer | Your team |
| Contacts, owner, notes | Your team | Your team |
The rule: facts the register owns are refreshed from the register, never typed by hand. Everything about your relationship stays with your team.
Keeping it clean
A one-off clean-up decays. Three habits keep it fresh:
- Ask for the number at creation. Make the SIREN or the Spanish registry details a required field for new company accounts, validated on entry.
- Refresh on a schedule. Re-check statuses before renewals and at least every few months, so ceased customers are flagged before the next invoice.
- Refresh on events. Re-check an account when a payment fails or mail is returned.
What a register can't add
Registers give identity and legal events. They don't give phone numbers, buyer contacts or intent signals, and you shouldn't expect them to. They also don't give the individual details of entrepreneurs who opted out of publication. In France, some companies don't appear in public searches at all: see why some French companies are missing from public searches.
Fuentio's API will return, for each SIREN or Spanish registry sheet, the legal name, form, status with its date and registered office, with the source and the check date. It isn't open yet: join the waitlist below to hear the day it opens.
See what we cover in France and Spain.
Limits. The examples and register behaviour were checked on 9 October 2026. Matching by name always needs a human review for uncertain cases. Fuentio returns register facts; it doesn't supply contact details or commercial data, and it doesn't judge a company.
Frequently asked questions
Should I delete ceased companies from my CRM?
No. Mark them closed with the date and source. Past invoices, contracts and history still need them.
Can I clean a CRM with only company names?
Partly. Search by name and city, accept clear matches, and send uncertain ones to a person. Ask customers for their number going forward.
How often should I refresh the register data?
Before renewals, after a failed payment or returned mail, and on a regular schedule, every few months at least.
Can I find a Spanish company by its NIF?
Not from the BORME, which doesn't publish it. Use the exact name, the province and the registry sheet.
Sources
- INSEE, definition of the SIREN number: insee.fr
- API Recherche d'entreprises, documentation (read on 9 October 2026): recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr
- BOE, BORME daily gazette: boe.es