📝 Understanding Text and Code Fields in Business Central

When working with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Cloud), data entry plays a key role in maintaining accurate records. Whether you're entering a customer comment, a currency code, or an item number, it's important to understand the difference between text fields and code fields, and how each behaves.

In this post, we’ll explore how these fields work, what they’re used for, and a few helpful tips to keep your data clean and consistent.

✍️ What Are Text and Code Fields?

In Business Central, most forms contain fields where you can enter alphanumeric data — this includes both letters and numbers. These are generally categorized as:

1. Text Fields

Text fields are used for free-form input — things like item descriptions, customer comments, or internal notes.

Key Features:

  • Accept any combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.

  • Used for descriptions or remarks where no predefined value is required.

  • The content is saved exactly as typed (case-sensitive, spacing preserved).

  • Maximum character limit: 250 characters.

📝 Example use cases:

  • “Deliver by end of week”

  • “Blue cotton T-shirt, size M”

  • “Special discount applied for bulk order”

2. Code Fields

Code fields are typically used for structured identifiers like customer numbers, currency codes, or language settings. These often link to lookup tables or follow predefined formats.

Key Features:

  • Accept alphanumeric values.

  • Automatically convert input to uppercase (e.g., typing usd becomes USD).

  • Often have predefined or validated values (e.g., currency codes like EUR, USD).

  • Also limited to 250 characters, though usually shorter in practice.

🧭 Example use cases:

  • Customer No. → C1001

  • Currency Code → USD

  • Language Code → ENUS

💡 Capitalization in Code Fields

One unique feature of code fields is that all input is automatically capitalized. This is done to ensure consistency — so whether you type eur, EUR, or Eur, Business Central stores it as EUR.

This helps avoid confusion and maintains uniformity across your database.

📏 Character Limit: 250

Both text and code fields in Business Central can hold up to 250 characters. This gives you flexibility while also enforcing some structure. It’s especially helpful to know when importing data or syncing with other systems that may have length constraints.


Thanks for Reading...!!


Regards,

Khushbu Rajvi

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