Custom Fields in Enterprise 10
As I mentioned in an earlier note, when Intuit added features to the custom fields feature of Enterprise 10 then unfortunately did not make these features accessible to third-party programmers. Although Intuit extended the number of custom fields in the program, they are hidden from view in the programming interface. This creates several problems, and some users of CCRQInvoice are seeing cryptic error messages.
If you are using CCRQInvoice to calculate values that are stored back in an order, such as total weight or total quantity, you have to use one of the “original” custom fields. That is, you must use one of the first five fields in the item list, and the first seven fields in the customer list. Although Enterprise 10 provides a larger number of fields, we just can’t work with any beyond those limits.
Another feature that Intuit added is the what kind of data option. This allows you to put a “mask” on the custom fields so that they will only accept certain kinds of data.
Note that this does not change the underlying type of data field – it is still a 30 character text field – it just changes what you can enter in the field.
Unfortunately, Intuit does not make this information available via the programming interface. We don’t have a way to see what “kind of data” setting you place on a field. If a program tries to update the field with data that doesn’t fit that “kind of data”, QuickBooks returns a somewhat cryptic error.
For example, here is what we get if CCRQInvoice calculates a total weight that includes more decimals than the mask allows:
A “Data Extension” is a “custom field”. Note that the error says that there is an invalid value, which helps. However, note that it also says “Unknown Error”. This is what QuickBooks returns back to us as an error message.
The simplest solution is for you to set the “kind of data” back to Any text, so that there is no mask. That is a simple thing to do, and it is unlikely that it will cause any issues for you.
It is frustrating to us that Intuit has decided to not provide updates to the programming interface, effectively hiding this information from software developers. It would be helpful if you would send feedback to Intuit about this problem. There is a Send feedback online feature in your Help menu in QuickBooks that you can use, for example. Tell Intuit that you would like to see all features of QuickBooks included in an updated SDK (that is the programming toolkit that programmers use), including the new custom field features. If Intuit can include this information, we will be able to access it to your benefit.
Category: CCRQInvoice
About the Author (Author Profile)
Charlie Russell is the founder of CCRSoftware. He’s been involved with the small business software industry since the mid 70′s, focusing on inventory and accounting software for small businesses. He is a Certified Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor and participate extensively in the QuickBooks Community user forums under the ID of CCRussell.
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Charlie,
Thank you for a very helpful blog site. I am working for a client that needs the weight on sales orders, etc. and have reviewed your product, the overview and tutorial.
Based on my observation, it appears you must load the SO data first and then “process” the SO to see the calculated total weight.
Our issue: The order takers add to an order live, line-by-line as the customer identifies the SKU’s they want. When the customer gets to a certain weight, they can jump to a new price level. Having to “process” the order every few lines to calculate the total weight seems cumbersome.
Am I interpreting the process correctly?
For calculating shipping weights, a final “processing” will work fine, but I was hoping for a real time calculation.
Any thoughts?
Again, thanks for the good work here!
Douglas Baer
Douglas, you understand the way this works. It is more for a batch process where several orders are processed at a time, or when you have time to work things out.
If you can contact our sales department directly we have other possible solutions, depending on your exact needs, on a custom basis. We have an order entry product that will give you totals as you enter the order, on screen. We have done modifications to this for a customer where the price varies as the total count increases, in several variations (per line, or even per order). But these are done on a custom basis, rather than off the shelf. Contact our sales department and describe what you need…
Charlie,
I’m back at this issue after a brief absence on other projects. I have not contacted your sales department yet, but above you mentioned that you have a “product” for Order Entry. Does that mean you have something created, but not advertized to the masses?
I have already added a custom item field for item wieght and have documented each of the item wieghts we sell. I have also added the wieght column to the visible interface of the Sales Order.
Now I am simply lacking the extended weight column and the total weight field on the Sales Order for the gals to use when taking an order.
Does your current product have this feature already or would you need to add it? If you would need to add it, can you give me a budgetary idea of the price and time?
Kind Regards,
Douglas Baer
White Cove Consulting
Douglas, the order entry product is used in custom installations, it is not “off the shelf”. If you would like to go into that in more detail, please contact our sales department at sales@ccrsoftware.com to discuss the details.