Making any field mandatory: Field Requirements
Platform › Customization › Field Requirements makes any field of any screen mandatory for your company — on every save or only before a step such as Submit, Approve or Post — and lists the fields a later step of the business flow reads.
A field left blank today is often the one a later step needs: a bank account with no cash GL account cannot be reconciled, an asset class with no depreciation accounts stops the monthly run. Field Requirements lets a company say which fields must be filled in, without writing a rule.
- Open Platform › Customization › Field Requirements. The tiles at the top say how many fields this company makes mandatory, how many recommended fields are on and off, how many wait for a step, your own rules, and how many the product requires.
- Find the field: type in Find a field on any screen (for example payment terms, clearing account, GSTIN), or go All modules › module › screen.
- Tick Mandatory beside the field. It is saved at once — there is no separate Save.
- For a header field on a screen with steps, choose Required from: On every save, or Before <step> (Before Submit, Before Approve, Before Post, Before Confirm, Before Publish — the steps that screen has). A line field can only be required on save.
- To undo your company’s own rule, press Back to default: a recommended field follows its default again, any other is optional.
- The rule holds however a record is written: the form, its lines, an import, ASK and the published API.
- On a form, a field required on save is starred like the product’s own required fields, and the save is refused with “<Field> is required” (on a line: “Line N: <Field> is required”). A rule that waits for a step is not starred: the record saves, and the step refuses with “<Field> is required before <Step>”.
- A rule changes what a new save must carry. A record saved earlier is asked for the field only when it is changed.
- Fields the product requires show Always required and cannot be made optional: the record cannot be stored without them.
- Every role with Platform may see the rules; only an administrator, or a role given the change grant on Field Requirements under Roles & authorizations, may change them. Recent changes shows the last 200 changes with who made them.
- Other people’s open sessions pick up a change within about a minute.
The recommended list
Recommended mandatory fields lists the fields a later step reads, with the step and why. Six are on by default (two of them only for a company in Saudi Arabia); the rest are off until you switch them on. Switching a recommended field off asks first, and says what may stop later.
| On by default | Why it matters later |
|---|---|
| Bank Accounts › Cash GL account | Receipts, payments and bank-feed matches post to it, and reconciliation compares the statement with it. |
| Asset Classes › Depreciation expense account | The monthly depreciation run debits it. |
| Asset Classes › Accumulated depreciation account | The monthly depreciation run credits it. |
| Pay Groups › Payer IBAN (Saudi Arabia) | The WPS salary file is refused without a valid Saudi IBAN. |
| Pay Groups › Payer bank code (Saudi Arabia) | The WPS file header names the paying bank by its SARIE code. |
| Supplier Onboarding › Tax ID, before Submit | An onboarding cannot be approved into a supplier without it (1099 / TDS reporting and e-invoices name it). |
- Recommended but off — accounting and purchasing: customer payment terms; account and contact email; supplier contact email; item standard cost, purchasing lead time and inventory account; carrier payment terms; tax code output and input accounts; expense type account; earning code GL account; intercompany receivable and payable accounts; lease liability and right-of-use asset accounts; payment engine fee account.
- Recommended but off — with a reason: a payment engine’s Clearing account (the engine already refuses to be configured or take payments without one, while a draft may be saved); a supplier’s payment terms and an item’s unit of measure (both have a default an import or API create relies on).
- Recommended but off — by country: a customer’s GSTIN (India) and buyer ID number (Saudi Arabia) — a consumer has neither.
- Recommended but off — at a step: a sales order’s requested date before Confirm; an agent’s Owner before Publish, and its Model.
- Recommended but off — education: an applicant’s programme and entry term; a student’s programme, advisor, admit term and sign-in; a faculty member’s employee record and email (My Teaching and the teaching rule find the teacher by them); a section’s teacher and room; an assignment’s due date, weight and points; an assessment’s date and weight; a term’s registration window, census date and grades due; a fee schedule’s programme and residency.
For a condition rather than a plain “must be filled” — required only for some records — write a validation under Custom Logic instead. See Custom fields → Making a field required.