No two businesses track exactly the same things, and that’s the quiet weakness of most off-the-shelf systems: they give you a fixed set of boxes and expect your business to bend around them. But you might need to record a PAT test date, a daily hire rate, a purchase-order number, a calibration flag, or an asset’s location on a particular shelf — details a generic tool simply has no place to put. The usual workaround is to cram them into a notes field where they can’t be searched, or to keep yet another spreadsheet alongside, which defeats the point entirely.
Custom fields remove that ceiling. They let you extend Asset Giant with the exact pieces of information your business cares about, so the system fits the way you work rather than forcing you to compromise.
Add the fields that matter to you
You define your own fields in a few clicks, choosing the right type for each so the data stays clean and usable:
- Text — for references such as a PO number, a shelf location or an internal code.
- Number — for values like a daily hire rate, a weight or a count.
- Date — for things that matter on a timeline, such as a next-service date or a PAT test date.
- Link (URL) — for a manufacturer’s page, a manual or a supplier listing.
- Yes / No — for simple flags like “requires calibration” or “loanable to clients”.
Once a field is defined, it appears automatically on every asset, ready to be filled in. There’s no need to redesign anything — your new field simply becomes part of the standard profile.
Fields you can actually search and report on
The real power of custom fields is that they’re not just storage — they’re fully searchable. Because each field has a proper type, you can build precise filters on them and surface exactly the assets that need attention. For example:
- List every item whose PAT test date falls before the end of the month, so nothing slips through.
- Pull up everything tagged with a particular PO number for a job you’re reconciling.
- Show all equipment flagged as requiring calibration ahead of a scheduled round.
This effectively gives you lightweight, business-specific reporting without any report-building — a capability covered in more depth under Using the Inventory Filters.
Best Practice: Resist the urge to add a field for everything at once. Start with the two or three pieces of information you already wish you were tracking, get used to filtering on them, and add more only when a genuine need appears.
To set them up, see Creating and Deleting Custom Fields.