Last reviewed: September 2026.
Why Sync Filters exist
Most firms keep prospects, vendors, centers of influence, family members, and former clients in the same CRM as their active clients. A CRM sync would bring all of them into SurgeTK. Sync Filters decide which records arrive. They also decide what happens to accounts that are closed in your CRM and to households that are no longer active.
This article covers both CRMs. Redtail filters live in the Redtail Sync Filters window. Zoho filters live in the Zoho field mapping. Sync Filters are available on every plan. Only SurgeTK Admins can change them.
Filter changes take effect on your next sync. Nothing in SurgeTK changes until that sync runs.
Redtail Sync Filters
Where to find them
Go to Settings › Integrations.
On the Redtail card, click Sync Filters. The window is called Redtail Sync Filters. It opens with the text "Control which Redtail contacts and accounts sync to SurgeTK. Changes take effect on your next sync."
Change the sections described below, then click Save Filters.
The window has four sections: Contact Categories, Contact Statuses, Closed Accounts, and Household Lifecycle from Redtail. Redtail must be connected. While a sync is running, the window cannot be edited.
Refresh the category and status lists
The lists come from your own Redtail database. SurgeTK keeps a copy for 24 hours. Click Refresh at the top of the window to load the newest lists, for example after you add a category or status in Redtail. You see "Filter options refreshed from Redtail." If Redtail returns an empty list, SurgeTK keeps the list it already had.
If the lists cannot be loaded, the window says "Couldn’t load the current options from Redtail. Your saved selections are shown and will be kept — click Refresh to change them." Values you saved that Redtail no longer has are marked "(no longer in Redtail)". They stay in your filter until you untick them.
Contact Categories
"Filter contacts by their Redtail category." Categories are your relationship labels in Redtail, such as A Client, Personal Client, or Prospect. The toggle next to the section title sets the mode:
Allowlist (the default): "Only sync contacts matching the selected items."
Denylist: "Skip contacts with the selected items."
Matching is exact. It ignores capitalization and spaces at the start or end of the value. "A Client" matches "a client". It does not match "A Client - Retired". If your firm uses A Client, B Client, and Personal Client, tick each one.
When no category is ticked, SurgeTK uses a built-in default. The default applies whichever mode the toggle shows. It syncs every contact whose category contains the word "client", so "Former Client" and "Prospective Client" pass too. It skips any category that contains "Ex-Client" or "Trust Client". It skips contacts with no category. Tick your own categories for an accurate result.
Contact Statuses
"Filter contacts by their Redtail status." Statuses are your lifecycle values in Redtail, such as Active, Inactive, or Deceased. This section works the same way as categories, but it starts in Denylist mode. When no status is ticked, every status passes, including a blank status.
A contact must pass both filters. If the category filter allows a contact but the status filter blocks it, the contact does not sync.
In Denylist mode the section adds: "Skipped statuses are also left out of a client's household. Use this to keep adult children out of their parents' household." See Linked family members below.
What happens to blank values
Many CRM records have no category or no status. This table shows what happens to them.
Mode | Contact with a blank category | Contact with a blank status |
Allowlist with items ticked | Excluded | Excluded |
Denylist with items ticked | Included | Included |
Nothing ticked | Excluded (the built-in default skips blank categories) | Included |
If you use an Allowlist and some contacts have no category, those contacts do not sync. Either set their category in Redtail, or switch to a Denylist and name only the categories to keep out.
Linked family members
Redtail families become SurgeTK households. Once one member of a Redtail family has synced as a client, the sync brings in the rest of the family. Different rules apply to those family members:
Contact Categories never applies to family members. A family member comes across even with a category you did not tick, or a category you deny-listed.
Contact Statuses applies to family members only in Denylist mode. An Allowlist does not block them, because a spouse often carries a status that is not on your list. A status you deny-list keeps that person out of the household.
Every family member is included: spouses, children, grandchildren, parents, anyone in the Redtail family. Their accounts are synced too.
Business contacts and deleted contacts are still left out. A family member who has already synced stays in SurgeTK, even if you deny-list their status later.
Family members are added when the sync reads their contact record. A normal sync reads only contacts that changed in Redtail since your last sync. Tick Re-read every contact to check every family.
A status Denylist is the only way to keep children and other dependents out of their parents' household. Step by step: Why do children or other family members appear in my households?
Rules that no filter changes
Contacts whose Redtail contact type is Business never sync, and their accounts are never pulled.
Contacts deleted in Redtail never sync.
Closed Accounts
This section decides "What happens when Redtail marks an account Closed, Transferred, or Inactive." An account counts as closed when its Redtail status is Closed, Transferred, or Inactive (Dormant and Suspended count as Inactive), or when it has a close date in Redtail.
Mark closed (the default): "Closed accounts stay in SurgeTK, marked closed. They leave AUM and Value Adds but keep their history. Manual and imported statuses always win."
Delete (legacy): "Closed accounts are removed from SurgeTK on every sync. Accounts you closed by hand or by import are never removed." On every sync, before it reads accounts, SurgeTK permanently deletes every Redtail-linked account already in SurgeTK that counts as closed. Each account that Redtail then reports as closed is deleted and not imported. This includes accounts with a closed status and no close date. Accounts you created by hand or imported from a spreadsheet are not deleted, because they have no Redtail account ID. Accounts you closed or reopened yourself in SurgeTK, or through an import, are left alone. One exception: a Redtail account that a spreadsheet import later updated keeps its Redtail ID and can still be deleted.
Hide closed accounts: "Hide closed accounts on household account lists. Each list offers a Show control."
If your firm switched on the older Closed Account Filter before this setting existed, the window shows Delete (legacy) selected. Check which option is selected before your next sync. Inactive, Dormant, and Suspended accounts count as closed in both modes, so they are left out of AUM and Value Adds even in Mark closed mode. Closed accounts are explained in Archiving households and closing accounts.
Household Lifecycle from Redtail
"When every member of a household is deceased or no longer a client, SurgeTK can suggest archiving it, or archive it for you." Pick a mode:
Off (the default): "SurgeTK never changes household status from Redtail."
Suggest: "Syncs suggest archiving households whose members are all deceased or no longer clients. You review each suggestion on the Households page." A suggested household shows "Redtail suggests archiving" on the Households page, with the menu item Apply Redtail suggestion….
Automatic: "Syncs archive those households automatically, capturing final Value Add snapshots. A status you set by hand always wins, and restoring is one click." Automatic mode archives at most 25 households per sync. The rest follow on later syncs. It restores only households it archived itself, when a member becomes active again.
How SurgeTK reads a household: when every member is deceased, the household is archived as deceased. When every member is deceased or no longer a client, it is archived as no longer a client. Any other member keeps the household active, including members you added by hand. A household status you set by hand, or through an import, always wins.
Below the mode, the window lists every Redtail contact status: "What each Redtail contact status means. Statuses left on Default follow SurgeTK's built-in reading (Deceased-type statuses read as deceased; Inactive, Former, Ex-, Terminated, Archived, Closed and Estate read as no longer a client)." Set each status to Default, Active client, No longer a client, or Deceased. On Default, a status containing "deceased", "dead", or "death" reads as deceased, and a status containing "inactive", "former", "ex-", "terminated", "archived", "closed", or "estate" reads as no longer a client. A status that reads as deceased also marks that client as Deceased in SurgeTK.
Save Filters
Click Save Filters. The footer of the window reminds you: "Filters apply to the contacts your next sync reads. To apply them to every contact, tick “Re-read every contact” when you sync." Nothing changes in SurgeTK until the next sync runs.
Which contacts the next sync checks
A normal Redtail sync asks Redtail only for contacts that changed since your last successful sync, and applies your filters to those contacts. To apply changed filters to your whole Redtail database, tick Re-read every contact in the Confirm Redtail Sync window: "Normally we only ask Redtail for contacts that changed since your last sync. Tick this to check all of them — slower, but it re-applies your filters and restores households you deleted."
Two cautions. A re-read brings back households and clients you deleted in SurgeTK, unless your filters now exclude them. If a re-read sync does not finish cleanly (partial, failed, or cancelled), the next sync is also a full re-read. The first sync after you connect or reconnect Redtail is always a full read of every contact.
Filters gate new contacts only
Filters decide which contacts are imported. They do not remove anything:
A contact already in SurgeTK keeps updating on every sync, even after you change a filter that would now exclude it. Its accounts keep refreshing too.
Tightening a filter never deletes a client, a household, or an account. A Redtail sync never deletes a client.
To remove a household that is already in SurgeTK, archive it or delete it on the Households page. Deleting a household removes its clients, accounts, liabilities, assets, and insurance records. If the household has Value Add snapshots or Surge packets, SurgeTK offers Archive instead.
SurgeTK does not remember that you deleted a household. A normal sync recreates it as soon as one of its contacts changes in Redtail. Re-read every contact recreates it at once. To keep a contact out for good, give it a category or status that your filters exclude.
Disconnecting Redtail resets every Sync Filter setting: categories, statuses, Closed Accounts, Hide closed accounts, and Household Lifecycle. If you reconnect, set the filters again before your first sync, because that sync reads every contact.
Zoho sync filtering
Zoho filtering works on households, by client type. You name the client types you do not want, and every other household syncs. There is no category or status filter for individual contacts. Filtering is part of the Zoho field mapping, so a filter change is saved with the mapping.
Where to find it
Go to Settings › Integrations.
On the Zoho card, click Map Fields. The Map Zoho Fields to SurgeTK window opens.
Open the Households tab and find Household Sync Filtering: "Exclude households from Zoho sync based on a client type field."
In Household Client Type Field, pick the Zoho picklist field on your household module that holds the client type. Until you do, the section shows "Select a client type field to load types."
Under Excluded Client Types, click Add type and pick a value in the new row, which starts as "-- choose a type to exclude --". Add one row per value. Click Remove on a row to drop it.
Set Excluded Households (see below), then click Save at the bottom of the window. You see "Mapping saved."
The values come from the Zoho picklist. A saved value that no longer exists in the picklist shows as "(Legacy)" followed by the value. It still excludes households that carry it until you remove the row.
How exclusion works
Matching ignores capitalization and extra spaces.
If the field holds several values (a multi-select, or values separated by commas or semicolons), each value is checked. Any match excludes the household. A household tagged both Client and Prospect is skipped when Prospect is excluded. A single value that contains a comma is also split at the comma.
An excluded household is skipped, and so is everything that points at it: its clients, accounts, bank accounts, insurance policies, other assets, liabilities, and tax years. The field's help text says: "Households whose Client Type matches any excluded value will be skipped during sync (and their clients will be skipped too)."
Households are read in full on every sync, so a new exclusion is applied to every household on the next sync. No Deep sync is needed for that.
Excluded Households: Remove or Archive
Excluding a type does more than stop new households. The Excluded Households setting decides what happens to matching households that are already in SurgeTK: "What happens to a SurgeTK household whose client type matches an excluded value. Remove deletes it and its data on the next sync; Archive keeps everything and marks the household archived."
Remove from SurgeTK (legacy): "Current behavior: households matching an excluded type are removed from SurgeTK, with their accounts and history, on every sync (legacy)." On every sync, SurgeTK permanently deletes each Zoho-linked household whose client type matches an excluded value, together with its clients, its accounts and bank accounts (including accounts its clients own in other households), their one-time transactions, its liabilities, other assets, insurance policies, tax years, and Value Adds. Data you entered by hand inside that household is deleted too. This cannot be undone. The only households spared are those whose status you set by hand or by import, and those that hold an account you closed by hand or by import.
Archive in SurgeTK: "Current behavior: households matching an excluded type are archived in SurgeTK — their data and history are kept." The household moves to the Archived list with everything in it, and final Value Add snapshots are captured. At most 25 households are archived per sync. The rest follow on later syncs. You can restore an archived household at any time. Households you archived or restored by hand are never touched.
A Households mapping saved before this choice existed is set to Remove from SurgeTK (legacy). A brand-new mapping starts on Archive in SurgeTK. Check the setting before you save an exclusion.
What happens when you add or remove an excluded type
Adding an exclusion removes or archives the matching households on the next sync, depending on the setting above. This can move many households at once. If you are unsure, contact SurgeTK support before you save.
Removing an exclusion in Remove mode re-creates the households on the next sync, as new households. Their earlier SurgeTK data is gone. Their clients and accounts come back only when Zoho includes those records in the sync, so run a Deep sync (see below).
Removing an exclusion in Archive mode restores the households the sync archived, on the next sync.
Closed accounts from Zoho
On the Investable Assets and Bank Accounts tabs, the Close-out Filtering section decides "What happens to accounts closed in Zoho."
Date Closed: map the Zoho field that stores the account close date. Without it, nothing in this section applies.
Previous Tax Year Cutoff: "Defaults to the prior tax year. You can override it to expand or tighten the cleanup window." The list runs from this year back ten years.
Closed Accounts: "What the sync does with accounts closed in Zoho before the cutoff. Remove deletes them from SurgeTK on every sync; Keep syncs them as closed accounts, preserving their history."
Remove from SurgeTK (legacy): "Current behavior: accounts closed in Zoho before January 1, [year] are removed from SurgeTK on every sync (legacy)." On an ordinary sync, SurgeTK deletes each Zoho-linked account whose Date Closed is before January 1 of the cutoff year, matched by account number, together with its one-time transactions and any beneficiary records no other account uses. Accounts you closed or reopened by hand or by import are not deleted. A Deep sync skips this cleanup.
Keep as closed accounts: "Current behavior: closed accounts stay in SurgeTK, marked closed. Accounts closed before January 1, [year] are hidden on the household's Accounts tab." The account keeps its history.
A mapping saved before this choice existed is set to Remove from SurgeTK (legacy). A brand-new mapping starts on Keep as closed accounts.
Household Status Mapping
Also on the Households tab: "Map values of a Zoho household status field to a SurgeTK lifecycle status. Applied on every sync; households you archived or restored by hand always win."
Household Status Field: "Select the Zoho picklist field that represents the household status. Without a field, the mapping below does nothing."
Status Values: click Add status and map one Zoho value per row to Active or Archived. "Each row maps one Zoho value to Active or Archived. While this map is on, a household whose value matches no row counts as Active — households this map archived are restored on the next full sync. Households archived by hand or import are never touched."
Use this when your Zoho household record already carries a status such as Former Client, and you want SurgeTK to archive and restore households from that status instead of from an exclusion.
Deep sync
An ordinary Zoho sync reads households in full, but for the other modules it reads only records changed since the last successful sync. In the Confirm Zoho Sync window, open Advanced and tick "Deep sync: re-check every Zoho record (slower). Also verifies records deleted in Zoho." The window adds: "Note: a deep sync skips closed-account cleanup — run an ordinary sync for that." Run a Deep sync after you remove an exclusion or change a mapping, so every record is read again. The box resets each time you open the window.
What a sync can delete
Filters change what a sync deletes or archives. This table lists every setting on this page that can remove or archive data. Archived households can be restored. Deleted data cannot.
CRM | Setting | What the sync does |
Redtail | Closed Accounts: Delete (legacy) | Permanently deletes closed Redtail-linked accounts on every sync. |
Redtail | Household Lifecycle from Redtail: Automatic | Archives households whose members are all deceased or no longer clients, at most 25 per sync. Restorable. |
Redtail | Any sync | Deletes a household that is left with no clients after the sync moves a client into its Redtail family's household, unless that household is archived. Recreates households you deleted when one of their contacts changes in Redtail. |
Zoho | Excluded Households: Remove from SurgeTK (legacy) | Permanently deletes matching households and everything in them, including hand-entered data, on every sync. |
Zoho | Excluded Households: Archive in SurgeTK | Archives matching households, at most 25 per sync. Restorable. |
Zoho | Closed Accounts: Remove from SurgeTK (legacy) | Permanently deletes accounts closed before January 1 of the cutoff year, on ordinary syncs. |
Zoho | Household Status Mapping | Archives households whose status value maps to Archived, and restores the ones it archived when the value changes. |
Syncs also replace some data that filters do not control, such as beneficiaries. See Syncing with Redtail and Syncing with Zoho.
Suggested first setup
Redtail, before your first sync:
Open Sync Filters and click Refresh.
Read your category and status lists. They are your own Redtail values.
For categories, choose Allowlist or Denylist, whichever needs fewer entries, and tick the values. Remember the blank-value rule.
In Contact Statuses, deny-list the statuses that must never come in, such as a child or dependent status. This is also what keeps children out of households.
Check Closed Accounts. Leave it on Mark closed unless you want closed accounts deleted.
Choose a Household Lifecycle from Redtail mode. Suggest lets you review each household before it is archived.
Click Save Filters, then run the sync.
Check your household count and total AUM on the Households page, and open the run's What changed details on the Imports page.
Zoho, before your first sync:
On the Households tab, map Household Client Type Field and add each type to exclude.
Set Excluded Households to Archive in SurgeTK unless you need deletion.
On the Investable Assets and Bank Accounts tabs, map Date Closed, check the cutoff year, and choose Keep as closed accounts unless you need deletion.
Click Save, then Sync.
Check the Households page and the run's Sync details on the Imports page. If you change an exclusion later, run a Deep sync.