QuickBooks Enterprise 2010 - Great New Feature: More and Better Custom Fields

QuickBooks Enterprise 2010 has a great new feature that didn't receive nearly as much fanfare as the new document management did...

It should have though!

To me, the ability to have more (and more functional) custom fields in QuickBooks Enterprise 2010 adds a great deal of functionality that many businesses have been searching for.

The "new and improved" custom fields come into play in several places:

• Item list
• Customer list
• Vendor list
• Employee list

We'll start with the Item List - once you open an item in QuickBooks Enterprise (any item), click the "Custom Fields" button, then click the "Define Fields" button, and you will see a window that looks like this:

I have filled in some of the fields above with examples to get your mind stirring about how you can adapt these new tools to the specific needs of your business.

Take note of the following enhancements - these are really great improvements to QuickBooks Enterprise:

• Use up to 15 custom fields instead of 5
• Pre-determine what type of data will be used in the custom field. In addition to the any text that has always been available, you can also choose from a variety of number options, phone number, date or even create your own custom list of options! (see the "what kind of data" column highlighted above)
• Require that the field be filled in either on a transaction OR when the item is being added to the item list for the first time (see the "required on" columns that are highlighted above).

That's right - you can require a field to be entered on a transaction! Think about how functional that could be to ensure that your order entry staff gets the order right the first time.

NOT JUST FOR ITEMS!

You also get more choices of custom fields when it comes to customers, vendors, and employees.

For example, in QuickBooks Enterprise 2010, if I am reviewing the details of a customer account, I can click the "Additional Info" tab within the customer account, then click the "Define Fields" button and then a window like this appears:

New and improved in this set of custom fields:

• You can have up to a total of 20 custom fields to be shared across your customer, vendor and employee lists
• You now have the same new choices when it comes to the type of data to be entered just as shown in the item list above.
• You can also make the entry of data into these fields mandatory on a transaction OR when setting up a customer, vendor or employee for the first time.

Think about the possibilities this opens up for capturing even more important data in QuickBooks. For example, you could easily set up two new custom fields and call them "Sales Contact" and "Purchasing Contact" - you have instantly doubled your number of fields available to hold important contact information.

How is your business using these new and improved custom fields in QuickBooks Enterprise 2010? Post a comment below to share your story with our readers!

RELATED POSTS:

• Let me provide you a customized quote on QuickBooks Enterprise 2010. It takes just a second to let me know what you need
• QuickBooks Enterprise 2010 - Free guide, FAQ, and other product insight

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Scott Gregory is a specialist with QuickBooks Enterprise, Premier and Pro accounting software. He has been helping businesses "think beyond the ledger" for over 25 years.

Comments

[Charlie Russell]

Scott, one fly in the ointment with this. If you use a third party program of any sort, the new fields are NOT accessible. This means any of the import/export tools, the ODBC driver, and any SDK based product. This is a major shortcoming that I hope Intuit rectifies in the future.