How to Use Custom Fields on Customers?

Need to track something about your customers that the standard form doesn’t cover — an emergency contact, a loyalty tier, a preferred delivery window, a referral source? Custom fields let you add your own fields to the customer record. Define a field once and it appears on every customer’s Create and Edit forms across your organisation, so the same information is captured consistently for everyone.

How to create custom fields for customers

Why Use Custom Fields?

The built-in customer form covers the essentials — name, contact, tax details, addresses. Custom fields extend it to whatever your business needs:

  • Consistency — everyone on your team captures the same extra details in the same place.
  • No developer needed — you define fields yourself from the app; no code or setup request.
  • Non-intrusive — if you configure zero custom fields, nothing extra shows on your forms. They only appear once you add them.

Custom fields are organisation-wide. A field you create shows up on every customer, not just one. There is no per-customer field definition.

Part 1 — Define Your Fields

You manage the list of custom fields (the “schema”) from the Customer List, not from an individual customer.

Step 1: Open Preferences

Go to Customers → Customers List, click the ⋯ button next to Create Customer, and choose Preferences. The Preferences — Customers drawer opens with two tabs: Custom Fields (covered here) and Customer ID (see Part 3). The Custom Fields tab lists any fields you’ve already created.

You need Settings (write) permission to add, edit, reorder, or deprecate fields. Without it, the drawer is read-only.

Step 2: Turn on standard fields (optional)

At the top of the tab, Standard fields lists common identity numbers for your country — for example PAN, Aadhaar Number, Driving Licence Number, and IFSC Code in India. Each shows its official format (such as ABCDE1234F for PAN). Switch on the ones you collect: the field is added to your list, tagged Standard, and values entered for it are checked against that format.

A standard field’s name, format and length are fixed — you can only change whether it is Required and Unique.

Step 3: Add your own field

Click Add Field and fill in:

Setting What it does
Field name The label shown on the form (e.g. “Emergency contact”). Up to 120 characters.
Field type How the value is entered — Text, Number, Date, or Dropdown.
Required Tick “Mandatory in Create and Edit forms” to force a value before the customer can be saved.
Unique Tick “Value must be unique within this organisation” so no two customers can hold the same value (case-insensitive, ignoring surrounding spaces; blank values are allowed). Available for Text and Number fields. If existing customers already share a value, Rentablez lists the duplicates and won’t turn Unique on until they’re fixed.

The available field types are:

  • Text — free text. Optionally set a Maximum Character Length (1–9999) to cap how much can be typed; leave it empty for no limit.
  • Number — numeric entry only.
  • Date — a date picker.
  • Dropdown — a fixed list of choices. Add each option on its own line; you need at least one.

Click Create field to save.

A yellow banner in the form reminds you that this is an organisation-wide change — the new field will appear on every customer’s Create and Edit forms.

Step 4: Reorder, edit, or remove fields

Back in the list view, each field shows its Type and Rules (Required or Optional, plus Unique where set). Each field has actions:

  • Move up / down — arrows set the order fields appear on the customer form.
  • Edit (pencil) — rename a field, toggle Required, or adjust dropdown options and max length. The field type cannot be changed after creation — this protects values already entered against a customer.
  • Deprecate (trash) — retire a field you no longer use.

Deprecating is a safe, reversible “soft delete” — it never erases data:

  • The field is hidden from the Create and Edit forms.
  • Any values already saved against customers stay visible (shown greyed out) on their profiles.
  • You can reactivate the field at any time with no data loss — tick Show deprecated fields in the drawer, then use the reactivate action.

Part 2 — Enter Values Against a Customer

Once fields exist, they collect values in two places.

When creating a customer

Open the Create Customer popup. Below the standard fields you’ll see a Custom Fields section listing your custom fields. Fill in whatever applies. Any field you marked Required must have a value before the customer can be saved.

When editing a customer

Open a customer’s profile and go to the Custom Fields tab. Each field is shown as a row with its current value (an empty value shows a dash). To fill in or change a value:

  1. Click the Edit (pencil) icon on the row.
  2. Enter the value using the input that matches the field type — text box, number box, date picker, or dropdown.
  3. Click the check icon to save, or the X to cancel.

To clear a saved value, use the Clear value (trash) icon on the row. Required fields are marked with an asterisk, and deprecated-but-still-valued fields appear greyed with a Deprecated tag.

Editing values on a customer requires Customers (write) permission. If the Custom Fields tab doesn’t appear, none have been configured yet — add them from the Customer List first.

Part 3 — Choose Where the Customer ID Comes From

The Customer ID tab in the same Preferences drawer decides how each customer’s ID is filled in, under Customer ID comes from:

  • Auto number — IDs are numbered automatically (for example CUST-000042), using the prefix and format set in Settings → Customer Settings → Customer ID.
  • PAN (or Aadhaar / Driving Licence) — the ID is copied from that standard field whenever the customer is saved, and becomes read-only. A customer who doesn’t have the number yet gets an auto number, replaced once it’s added. The field is made Unique, since no two customers can share an ID, and existing customers who already have the number are updated when you save.

A source is greyed out with (turn it on in Custom Fields first) until you switch that standard field on. Pick a source and click Save.

Tips

  • Deprecate instead of guessing. If a field is no longer relevant, deprecate it rather than leaving it on every form — the history stays intact and you can bring it back later.
  • Set a max length on text fields you export or print, so entries stay tidy.
  • Use Dropdown for anything with fixed choices (tiers, sources, regions) — it keeps values clean and reportable versus free text.