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Custom Fields

When creating an expense record or recording a transaction in Zoho Spend, you will be prompted to enter data in several fields. These fields might not be required or sufficient for your organization. In order to make your business spend management more efficient, Zoho Spend provides you with the ability to customize existing fields or add more fields based on your organization’s needs.

You can add more fields by creating custom fields to receive additional information and choose the input fields your users would view. You can also choose to make these fields mandatory and add them to the transaction PDFs.

Create Custom Field

To create a new custom field:

  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
    Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Select the module for which you want to create a new custom field.
  • Go to the Field Customization or Fields tab of the respective module.
  • Click + New Field in the top right corner of the page.
  • Fill in the following details:

Label Name

Enter the Label Name and select the Data Type. After selecting an appropriate data type, a preview of the custom field will be displayed.

Help Text

Provide any Help Text to let your users know the function of the custom field, if necessary.

Data Privacy

If the field contains sensitive information, you can choose to secure the information by selecting PII/ePHI to protect the information entered.

Insight: Encryption is the process of securing the entered information. This process will convert original information into cypher text, thereby preventing the data from being stolen.

PII - Select PII if the information you enter is confidential and can be used to identify a person. You can mark fields such as Text, Email, URL, Phone, Number,and Date as PII. You can encrypt and store it if the data is sensitive or store it without encryption if the data is non-sensitive. Choose if the information you enter will be sensitive or not sensitive:

  • Sensitive data. Encrypt and store it: This data can be viewed only by users with permission to access PII.
  • Not sensitive data. Store it without encryption: Only users with access to protected data can view the details. However, users can use this field to perform advanced searches.

ePHI - Select ePHI if the information that you enter can be used to identify a patient. For example, an electronic copy of a medical report will be ePHI. You can mark only fields such as Text, Email, URL, Phone, and Date as ePHI. The data will be treated as sensitive; therefore, it will undergo encryption before being securely stored. Only users with access to protected data can access the fields. Users cannot use this field to perform advanced searches.

Prevent Duplicate Values

Click Yes for Restrict Duplicate Values if you want to prevent the users from entering the same value for this custom field in multiple records within a module.

Click No for Restrict Duplicate Values to display the Default Value field. The value you enter in this field will appear by default when creating records in the module.

Input Format

Add data in a custom field and validate them using the Input Format field. You can specify the type of characters that can be entered and the length as well.

For example, many countries use the National Insurance Number (NIN) to track citizens. The NIN is 9 characters long, consisting of two letters, six digits, and one letter. If you want to store the NIN for users in your organization, you can set it up using a custom field. The Input Format ensures that any data entered in this custom field matches the correct NIN format. In this case, you need to enter the value ^[A-Z]{2}[0-9]{6}[A-Z]{1}$.

If you choose the Text Box (Single Line) or Text Box (Multi-line) data type, you can either enter the input format directly by clicking Configure Custom Format or choose from the available input formats by clicking Use Standard Formats.

  • If you select Use Standard Formats, you can choose from the following options:
    FormatDescription
    NumbersThe custom field accepts only a combination of the numbers 0-9. For example,123.
    Alphanumeric Characters Without SpacesThe custom field accepts only a combination of lowercase letters (a-z), uppercase letters (A-Z), and numbers (0-9), without any spaces. For example, customField123.
    Alphanumeric Characters With SpacesThe custom field accepts only a combination of lowercase letters (a-z), uppercase letters (A-Z), numbers (0-9), and spaces. For example, custom Field 123.
    Alphanumeric Characters With Hyphens and UnderscoresThe custom field accepts only a combination of lowercase letters (a-z), uppercase letters (A-Z), numbers (0-9), hyphens (-), and underscores (-). For example, custom-Field_123.
    Alphabets Without SpacesThe custom field accepts only a combination of lowercase (a-z) and uppercase (A-Z) letters, without any spaces. For example, customField.
    Alphabets With SpacesThe custom field accepts only a combination of lowercase (a-z) and uppercase (A-Z) letters and spaces. For example, custom Field.
  • If you select Configure Custom Format, you can directly enter the input format in the custom field. For example, ^[A-Z]{2}[0-9]{6}[A-Z]{1}$.

Default Value

The value you enter will be the default value of the custom field. For example, if you create a custom field for the Bills module and set the Default Value as 1. It will automatically fill the custom field with 1 when you create a bill without providing any value for the custom field. A preview of the field and the data will be shown on the same page.

Note:

  • This field will not be available if you’ve enabled Data Privacy for the custom field.
  • If you enable Prevent Duplicate Values for a custom field and set a Default Value, ensure you provide a unique value for the custom field while creating records.

You can also choose to inherit values from fields in other modules.

  • Select Inherit value next to Default Value.
  • Click the first dropdown next to the Inherit Value From field and select the module from which you want to inherit the value. You can inherit data from modules related to the module for which you’re creating the custom field. For example, if you’re creating the custom field for the Invoices module, you can inherit the fields in the Customers module.
  • Now, click the second dropdown next to the Inherit Value From field and select the field of the module from which you want to inherit the value. This will be the default value for this custom field when you create transactions.

Is Mandatory

Choose whether this custom field should be a mandatory field. If you select Yes, users can save or update records only after entering a value in this field. If you select No, they can save or update records even without entering a value.

Show in All PDFs

Click Yes for Show in all PDF if you want the custom field to be included in transaction PDFs.

  • Click Save after filling the required details in the above-mentioned fields.

API Field Name

Once you save a custom field, you can edit it to find the API Field Name. This name will be used when referring to this custom field for an API call.

Custom Field Limitations

There are certain limitations to the number of custom fields that can be created for each data type. Based on the limitations, custom fields are split into the following sections: Numerical, Decimal, String, Boolean, Long Text, Multi-select, and Formula.

You can know the number of custom fields that are available for your use. Here’s how:

  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
    Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Select the module for which you want to view the number of custom fields.
  • Go to the Field Customization or Fields tab of the respective module.
  • Click Custom Fields Usage in the top right corner.

Now, you will be able to view the custom field usage for different modules.

Edit Custom Field

You can make changes to the custom field you created. Here’s how:

  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
    Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Go to the Field Customization or Fields tab of the respective module.
  • Click the Gear icon next to the custom field you want to edit or hover over the custom field.
  • Click Edit from the dropdown.
  • Make the necessary changes and click Save.

Mark Custom Field as Mandatory

Here’s how you can mark a custom field as mandatory:

  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
  • Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Go to the Field Customization or Fields tab of the respective module.
  • Hover over the custom field and select Mark as Mandatory.

Show Custom Field in All Transaction PDFs

Here’s how you can show a custom field in all transaction PDFs:

  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
  • Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Go to the Field Customization or Fields tab of the respective module.
  • Hover over the custom field and select Show in All PDFs.

Hide Custom Field in All Transaction PDFs

Here’s how you can hide a custom field in all the transaction PDFs:

  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
  • Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Go to the Field Customization or Fields tab of the respective module.
  • Hover over the custom field and select Hide in all PDF.

Disable or Mark a Custom Field as Inactive

If you don’t want to delete a custom field but also don’t want to use it in records, you can disable or mark it as inactive. Here’s how:

  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
  • Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Go to the Field Customization or Fields tab of the respective module.
  • Uncheck the checkbox next to the custom field you want to disable and click Save or hover over the custom field and select Mark as Inactive.

Enable or Mark a Custom Field as Active

You can enable a disabled custom field. Here’s how:

  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
  • Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Go to the Field Customization or Fields tab of the respective module.
  • Check the checkbox next to the disabled custom field and click Save or hover over the custom field and select Mark as Active.

Provide Users Access Permission to Custom Fields

Here’s how you can provide access permission for your users to the custom fields:

  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
    Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Go to the Field Customization or Fields tab of the respective module.
  • Click the Gear icon next to the custom field for which you want to provide access permission to users or hover over the custom field for which you want to configure.
  • Click Access Permissions from the dropdown.
  • Choose the level of access you want to provide to each role. By default, the admin role has unrestricted access to all modules.
    • Read and Write: Users in the role can view and update the data stored in the custom field.
    • Read Only: Users in the role can view the data in the custom field but cannot update it.
    • Hide Field: Users in the role cannot view the custom field.
  • Click Save.

With this, users of the role will be able to view or update data in the custom field based on the access you’ve provided.

Delete Custom Field

Here’s how you can delete the custom field:

  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
    Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Select the respective module and go to the Fields tab.
  • Click the Gear icon next to the custom field you want to delete or hover over the custom field.
  • Click Delete from dropdown.
  • Confirm your action by clicking Delete again to delete the custom field in the pop-up that appears.
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