Short answer

Delete the genuine duplicates, or set them to Closed if you want the trail. Set a fault you have decided not to repair to Closed too. And where a recurring check keeps asking about something the asset simply does not have, answer that item N/A on the checklist so it stops generating the defect in the first place. ⚠️ There is a Duplicate status in the dropdown, but it is not treated as a resolved state, so a defect marked Duplicate stays on your open list even with completed work hidden. It does not clear your list, so it does not solve this problem.

Detail

This comes up most on daily and weekly vehicle checks, and it is not anyone doing anything wrong. The check asks the same question every day, the fault is real and permanent, and the operative filling it in on the phone has no way of seeing that the same defect was raised yesterday. So they raise it again, in good faith, and again the day after.

You have three moves, and they do different jobs.

1. Delete the repeat, or close it. The fault is real and already logged, so the second and third copies are noise. Delete them and the list is clean. If you would rather keep the trail, set them to Closed instead: that still clears them from your working view, and the defect stays on the asset's history, so you can see the fault was reported more than once. That is worth having where a fault keeps coming back, because how often something is re-reported tells you something — a fault flagged five times in a fortnight is usually a fault nobody has actioned.

⚠️ Don't reach for the Duplicate status for this. It exists in the dropdown, but it is not treated as a resolved state, so a defect marked Duplicate stays in your open list even when you hide completed work. It reads like the obvious answer and it will not tidy anything up.

2. Mark it Closed. The fault is real, you want it on the record, and you are not going to fix it. Recording existing bodywork damage on a vehicle so there is a dated, photographed trail is the classic case: it is not a repair job, it is evidence. Closed keeps it on the asset and takes it off your list.

Closed is for the closed book, not the slow-moving problem. Use it where nobody is going back to look — the scratch you have photographed, the item the machine was never supplied with. If it is something that will get worse and will need action eventually, a crack, rot starting, a fence post beginning to lean, then leave the defect Open at Low priority and schedule a job to go and check it, so the checking genuinely happens instead of being a label. How to Monitor a Defect Over Time covers that properly. The test is simply whether anyone is going back to look.

And keep Closed for the cosmetic or the accepted, never for anything bearing on safety. A vehicle that never had a warning triangle is one thing; a vehicle that has lost one is a real fault, and accepting it is a decision somebody has to take deliberately.

3. Answer the checklist item N/A. This is the only one that prevents the problem rather than tidying it up afterwards. If the check asks about something the asset genuinely does not have, the honest answer is N/A, not a fail. Answer it that way and it stops producing a defect every cycle.

Whichever you use, the defect stays visible on the asset's own Tasks tab, so nothing is lost from the compliance history.

Watch-outs

  • Closed is not Fixed. Don't reach for Fixed on something you never repaired. It reads as completed work and quietly inflates any report of what you have actually put right.
  • Deleting loses the fact it was reported twice. Usually that does not matter. Where it might, because the same fault keeps reappearing and you want to be able to show that, use Closed instead: same effect on your list, and the record stays on the asset.
  • N/A is the right answer only when the item does not apply to that asset. A vehicle that was never supplied with a warning triangle is N/A. A vehicle that should have one and has lost it is a real fault, and whether to accept that is a manager's decision, not something to bury in a checklist answer.
  • Be careful before you N/A your way out of a legal check. Statutory and insurer-required items are not yours to switch off. If a required item genuinely does not apply to a particular asset, it is usually the wrong checklist variant on that asset rather than a question to skip.
  • Do the pruning on a rhythm, not when it gets bad. A defects list that nobody trusts stops being looked at, and then the one urgent thing in it gets missed. Ten minutes a week beats an afternoon a quarter.
  • If the same defect keeps returning after you have answered N/A, check which checklist is attached to that asset. The item is probably coming from a variant meant for a different kind of vehicle or machine.