Computed Fields

Derived values are everywhere in business data. An invoice total that sums the line items. A profit margin calculated from cost and selling price. The number of days overdue calculated from the due date. A completion percentage derived from the number of completed tasks versus the total.

When these values are manually entered, they go stale. The total doesn't update when a line item changes. The margin reflects the price from three months ago, before the last adjustment. The overdue count is whatever someone last typed in.

Computed fields make these values automatic.

Define the Formula

A computed field is defined by its expression: a formula that references other fields on the same record or aggregates from related records.

Expressions support arithmetic — addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. They support date arithmetic — days between two dates, days from now until a date. They support conditional logic — display this value if a condition is true, otherwise display that value. They support aggregations over related records — sum of all line item totals, count of tasks with a given status.

The expression is configured in the field definition. The platform evaluates it whenever the record is displayed.

Always Current

Because computed fields are evaluated from current data, they're always accurate. Change a line item quantity and the invoice total recalculates. Change the cost price and the margin recalculates. The values reflect the current state of the record, not what they were when last manually updated.

This eliminates a category of data maintenance work: keeping derived values in sync with the data they derive from. The platform handles this automatically.

Read-Only by Design

Computed fields are read-only. They display a value; they don't accept one. This distinction is important — it prevents manual override of values that should always derive from their source data.

In forms, computed fields appear as non-editable display elements. In list views, they appear in columns like any other field. In PDF exports, they render with their computed values at the time of export.

Aggregations Across Related Records

The most powerful computed fields aggregate across relationships. A customer's "total revenue" field sums all invoice totals linked to that customer. A project's "task completion rate" divides completed tasks by total tasks. A product's "average order quantity" averages the quantity across all orders containing that product.

These cross-record aggregations would otherwise require manual tracking, periodic calculation runs, or separate reporting tools. As computed fields, they're always current and always on the record where they're needed.