Custom Fields

When creating an expense record or recording a transaction in Zoho Expense, you will be prompted to enter data in several fields. These fields might not be required or sufficient for your organization. In order to make your expense reporting experience more efficient, Zoho Expense provides you with the ability to customize existing fields or add more fields based on your organization’s needs.

You can add more fields by creating custom fields to receive additional information and choose the input fields your users would view. You can also choose to make these fields mandatory and add them to the report PDF.


Create Custom Field

To create a new custom field:

  • Click Admin View on the left sidebar.
  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
    Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Select Modules under Customization.
  • Select the module for which you want to create a new custom field.
  • Go to the Fields tab of the respective module.
  • Click + New Field in the top right corner of the page.
  • Enter the Label Name and select the Data Type. After selecting an appropriate data type, a preview of the custom field will be displayed.
  • Provide any Help Text to let your users know the function of the custom field, if necessary.
  • If the field contains sensitive information, you can choose to secure the information by selecting PII/ePHI to protect the information entered.

Insight: Encryption is the process of securing the entered information. This process will convert original information into cypher text, thereby preventing the data from being stolen.

PII - Any information that can potentially identify an individual will fall under Personally Identifiable Information (PII). These are classified into two types: direct (e.g., name, email, phone number, etc) and indirect (e.g., date of birth, gender, etc).

ePHI - If the user has to enter medical information that can be used to identify a person, select Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI). An electronic copy of medical report will be ePHI. You can only mark the Text, Email, URL, Phone, and Date fields as ePHI.

Custom Field
  • Zoho Expense provides you with three options:

    PII Option Description
    Yes, it’s PII. Encrypt and store it. The data in the field will be encrypted and stored. Only the users who have permission to access PII can view this data.
    Yes, it’s PII but not sensitive. Store it without encryption. The data will be stored and not encrypted. Only the users who have permission to access PII can view this data.
    Yes, it’s ePHI and PII. Encrypt and store it. The data in the field will be encrypted and stored. Only users with access to PII and ePHI will be able to view the details.
  • Click Yes under Restrict Duplicate Values if you want to prevent the users from entering the same value for this custom field in different records or transactions, else click No.

  • Click Yes under Is Mandatory if you want to make the custom field a mandatory field, else click No.

  • Click Yes under Show in all PDF if you want the custom field to be available in PDFs, else click No.

PII and ePHI
  • Click Save.

Edit Custom Field

You can make changes to the custom field you created. Here’s how:

  • Click Admin View on the left sidebar.
  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
    Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Select Modules under Customization.
  • Select the respective module and go to the Fields tab.
  • Hover over the custom field you want to edit and click the Gear icon.
  • Click Edit.
  • Make the necessary changes and click Save.
Edit Custom Field

Delete Custom Field

Here’s how you can delete the custom field you created:

  • Click Admin View on the left sidebar.
  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
    Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Select Modules under Customization.
  • Select the respective module and go to the Fields tab.
  • Hover over the custom field you want to delete and click the Gear icon
  • Click Delete.
Delete Custom Field
  • Confirm your action by clicking Delete again to delete the custom field in the pop-up that appears.

Provide Access Permission to Custom Fields

Here’s how you can provide access permission for your users to the custom fields:

  • Click Admin View on the left sidebar.
  • Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
    (OR)
    Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
  • Select Modules under Customization.
  • Select the respective module and go to the Fields tab.
  • Hover over the custom field for which you want to provide access permission to users.
  • Click the Gear icon and click Access Permissions.
Permission for users
  • Choose the level of access you want to provide to your users. By default, the admin role has unrestricted access to all modules.
  • Click Save in the Access Permissions pop-up.
Access Permissions
  • Click Save.

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