Automatic Account numbering/reference?

[Rilliam]

I have little experince with Sugar, and we are using the Opensource until we decide on a Professional purchase.

What bugs me a bit about account handling is some kind of reference/number to be created when making accounts. We currently have 5-digit numbers for several exisiting accounts but as we add new accounts the potential for creating duplicates or unwanted sequences is worrying.
Are we supposed to keep track of these manually, or is there a workaround to get this working automatically as in:
1. New account, generate number (predefined number of digits).
2. Check if exists, if exists do another that does not.

?

[macscr]

Im looking for something like this as well. I would like to append to an existing accoutn number if its a child account. For example: parent account is 12345678-001. Child account would then be 12345678-002 and so on.

[blex2005]

I'm not 100% sure what you are looking for. Every account gets a unique id - GUID. However, if you want you could create an auto incrementing field directly in mysql. Another option is to create an incrementing field using some type of configuration table containing unique ids.

It really depends on your comfort with programming in SugarCRM and other requirements like performance, maintenance, etc.

There isn't an auto update field through the UI if that is what you are looking for.