Default Field Values
The system provides default values only for fields that are not required. When applying a default value, the system first tries to use a specified value. If none is given, the system uses the default. If no default is given, the system enters null.
User-defined defaults through the UI do not apply to SOAP web services.
For information about setting default values to custom fields, see Setting Validation and Defaulting Properties.
Hidden Fields
The SOAP web services API includes fields that are not visible in the NetSuite UI. In some cases, these fields have been hidden through SuiteBuilder point-and-click customization. In other cases, hidden fields are hidden by NetSuite. These types of hidden fields are used primarily for storing system-generated information such as dates.
For example, every SOAP-supported record contains either a dateCreated or createdDate field. These fields are not writeable. By default, these fields are populated with a system-generated timestamp. Note that system-generated dates and times are preserved for audit trail purposes.
The Use Defaults Web service preference does not affect the behavior of hidden fields. Even if the Use Defaults preference is not enabled, hidden fields are populated when a value is not supplied in the request. Also, for audit purposes, the true system date is always recorded for each record and cannot be overridden.
Calls to get or search (when the full record is returned) return the record in edit mode.