What they are for
The CRM ships with the fields most businesses need. Custom fields cover the ones only you need: an account number, a lead source, a service plan, a contract value.
Add a field
Creating one
- Go to Customers, then Settings, then Custom fields.
- Choose whether the field is on Contact or Company. They are separate lists.
- Type a label, pick a type, and press Add field.
Four types are available:
- Text. Anything. Filters on "contains".
- Number. Filters on an exact match.
- Date. Filters on an exact match.
- Dropdown. You supply the options as a comma-separated list. Filters on an exact match.
Choose dropdown over text where you can
A text field for lead source will collect "Google", "google", "Google Ads" and "GAds", and none of them will group together in a filter. A dropdown gives you the same information in a form you can actually count.
Filling them in
Custom fields appear on every contact or company of that type, and are edited on the record itself.
Filtering by them
The filter bar on the Customers list builds conditions from your custom fields. Active conditions show as chips you can remove one at a time. Text fields match on contains; the other types match exactly. See columns and filters.
Deleting a field
Deleting removes the field and the values stored in it, on every record. There is a confirm step, and it cannot be undone. If you only want to stop using a field, rename it rather than deleting it: the data stays and you can still report on it.
Who can manage them
Only owners and admins can add or remove custom fields, because they change the shape of the data for everyone. Anyone who can edit a record can fill them in.