Custom Fields

Go to Settings → Custom Fields (under the Library group on the Settings page) and click Create. You need permission to manage settings — if you don't see the page, ask your account owner. Each field definition has:

• Label — the name shown everywhere (up to 100 characters). Labels must be unique for each target, so Inventory can have a "Notes" field and Customer can have its own "Notes".
• Applies To — Inventory, Customer, or Vendor. This is chosen when you create the field and can't be changed later.
• Type — one of the five types below. Also locked after creation; to change a field's type, create a new field and archive the old one (stored values are kept).
• Options — for Dropdown fields only: the ordered list of choices.
• Category scope — for Inventory fields only: all categories, or just the ones you pick (next section).
• Required on new saves — when on, the field must be filled in to save the record. This applies going forward only; existing records are never bulk-blocked.
• Help Text — an optional hint shown under the input on the detail sheet.
• Status — draft, active, or archived. Only active fields appear on records and in CSV files.

If you have no fields yet, the page offers one-click starter suggestions per target — Material and Color/Finish for inventory, Customer Type and Allergen Notes for customers, Lead Time (days) and Certifications for vendors. Clicking one opens the create sheet pre-filled; nothing is created until you save.

An Inventory field can apply to all categories or only to the categories you choose — so "Scent Profile" appears on finished goods and ingredients but never on equipment, while "Voltage" appears only on equipment. Each category's detail sheet stays short and relevant.

If you later change an item's category so a field no longer applies, the stored value is retained, not deleted — the field simply stops rendering. Switch the category back and the value reappears. Customer and Vendor fields have no sub-scope; each target gets one set of fields.

Open any inventory item (for example Source → Ingredients or Deliver → Products), customer (Deliver → Customers), or vendor (Source → Vendors) and edit it — your active fields render as a Custom Fields section on the detail sheet, in the display order you set, each with the right input for its type: a text box, a numeric input, a date picker, a switch, or a dropdown of your options. Help text appears under the input.

Required fields are marked and block saving while empty — but only on the records you actively edit. Turning "Required" on never locks you out of records saved before the rule existed; the missing value surfaces the next time you edit that record.

Every field becomes a list column on its target's list pages. Custom-field columns are hidden by default so a long field list never crowds the table — turn the ones you want on from the list's column-visibility menu; your choice is remembered per device.

Each column header carries a filter matched to the field's type: text contains, number range, date range, yes/no, or a multi-select of dropdown options (including an "(empty)" choice to find records with no value). Filters compose with the list's other filters, and your selections persist between visits. Sorting by a custom-field column works on the inventory and vendor lists; the customer list supports custom-field filtering but not sorting by these columns.

CSV export from the inventory, customer, and vendor lists includes one column per active field, titled "CF: " followed by the field's label — for example CF: Scent Profile. Archived fields are not exported. On import, a header matches a field by that "CF:" title, by the bare label, or by the field's internal key, case-insensitively — and you can also map any column to a field by hand in the import mapping step.

• Import never creates a field definition. An unrecognized header simply stays unmapped — a typo can't silently mint a new field. Define fields in Settings first.
• Yes/No values export as Yes or No; import also accepts true, false, 1, and 0.
• Dates use YYYY-MM-DD.
• Dropdown values must match one of the field's options exactly, including capitalization — options are never created on import either.
• A value whose field doesn't apply to that row's inventory category is skipped with a warning rather than failing the import.
• "Required" is not enforced during CSV import, so migrations and bulk loads are never blocked by a required field.

For the general import workflow, see Importing from CSV and the import reference.

Because fields live in one registry, renaming a field updates it everywhere instantly — every detail sheet, column, and future export. Your saved column and filter preferences survive renames too, and CSV import still matches the field by its stable internal key.

The settings table shows a usage count — how many records hold a value for each field. A field that's still in use can't be deleted; archive it instead. Archiving hides the field from sheets, columns, and exports but keeps every stored value, so unarchiving restores everything. Delete is only available at zero usage.

There is no cap on the number of custom fields, on any plan. The practical limits: labels up to 100 characters, help text up to 500, and text values up to 2,000 characters.