Add custom fields

Every organization tracks something the others do not. Custom fields cover it without a code change.

Define them

Go to Settings, then Customization.

Fields can be added to seven record types: donor, donation, pledge, pledge payment, designation, campaign and appeal.

The six types

Currency is worth choosing over Text for money. Currency custom fields are stored the same way as every other amount in Mich, in the currency's smallest unit, so changing your organization's currency re-renders them correctly instead of corrupting them. A money value typed into a Text field is just a string, and will not add up.

Where they appear

A defined field shows in the Custom Fields section of that record type's form, becomes filterable in its list view, and is available as a merge token for your document templates.

Importing can create them for you

You do not have to set a field up here first. If you import a spreadsheet with a column Mich has no field for, map it to Custom 1–4 and the wizard offers to create the field, named after your column heading — see Import donors from a spreadsheet.

It also picks the type from what is in the column: repeating values become a Dropdown already filled with them, dates become a Date field, numbers a Number. You can override the choice in the wizard. Amounts are the one thing it will not guess — set those to Currency yourself, for the reason above.

Two differences from a field you create here:

• It is not available in document templates. A column that arrived from a spreadsheet has not been reviewed for whether it belongs on a donor's tax receipt, so Mich leaves that off. Turn it on here if you want it.
• Undoing the import does not remove it. The undo deletes the records that were imported, not the settings created along the way — you may already have used the field on a record that had nothing to do with the import. After an undo you are left with the field, empty. Delete it here if you do not want it.