System Notes Overview
System Notes and System Notes v2 are separate systems. There is no change to the existing System Notes. For more information about System Notes v2, see System Notes v2 Overview. For information about the records that are supported, see Records Supported in System Notes v2.
Throughout the help center, topic content specific to System Notes v2 is identified with “v2”. Any content that does not have the “v2” identification refers to System Notes only.
Watch the following help video for information about system notes:
This is the first video in a 4–part series of videos about System Notes. To watch the other parts of the series, see:
NetSuite uses System Notes to track any changes made to a record. A system note for a change on a record captures the date and time when the change was made, who made the change, the interface from which the change was initiated, the type of change, the field that was changed, and the old and new value in the record. System Notes cannot be edited by any user, script or app. System notes are logged on custom records as well as standard records.
Accessing System Notes
Depending on the method you use to access system notes, consider the following:
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To view the system notes on a record, you must have access to this record and the Notes Tab permission. The Notes Tab permission allows you to see system notes only for changes you made yourself.
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To query all system notes through the analytics data source, you must have the Administrator role or the System Notes permission. Users with the Administrator role should assign this permission to users without the Administrator role so they can query system notes data. Without the Administrator role or the System Notes permission, users can see only system notes query results for changes they made themselves.
For more information about permissions, see Setting Permissions.
When searching system notes, you can search for certain records, use advanced search filters, create a saved search, or export the information for additional analysis. For more information, see Searching System Notes.
System notes are also logged on changes to general configuration settings that have a financial impact. Setting changes that are logged include:
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Company information
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General preferences
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Enable features
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Accounting lists
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Tax setup
An audit trail is a search for system note records related to a certain record type. The Transaction Audit Trail enables you to produce a report that provides a detailed history of all transactions entered into NetSuite, or you can view system notes for multiple transactions. The audit trail provides information about the transaction, who entered the transaction, and when the transaction was created or modified. By default, the Transaction Audit Trail report is available to the CEO, CEO (Hands Off), CFO, and Support Administrator roles. Other users with a custom role can access the Transaction Audit Trail report if they have the audit trail permission assigned to their role.
Perform a review of system notes and audit trails regularly. As part of an Activity Logging Review, users with appropriate permission should review items like system notes in addition to reviewing specific field changes, script changes, and expired access, and any other ongoing auditing that is required by your organization.
You can search for system notes using SuiteScript. For details, see System Note.
Viewing System Notes on a Record
To review changes made to a record, open the record and select System Information > System Notes. Details about every change related to the record are listed. For transactions, the System Notes subtab also shows system logs.
Use the Field dropdown list on the System Notes subtab to see changes for a certain field.
System notes descriptions are limited to 300 characters. Any additional characters are truncated.
For more information, see Auditing Primary Data and Configuration Changes in NetSuite.
Viewing System Notes on Configuration Settings
To view system notes on configuration and setup pages, create a saved search. On the Standard subtab, specify the filter for system notes you want to view:
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To view system notes for enabled features, enter Record Type is Enable Features
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To view system notes for company preferences, enter Record Type is Company Preferences
On the Available Filters subtab, you can specify that the search results can be filtered by record type. For more information, see Creating Saved Searches for System Notes.
Viewing System Notes Using NetSuite2.com Data Source
As of 2025.1, the NetSuite.com data source is no longer supported and will be removed in 2026.1. For more information, see SuiteAnalytics Connect NetSuite.com Data Source End of Support.
The NetSuite2.com data source uses a different schema than NetSuite.com. System notes fields that were available in NetSuite.com may use a different ID, represent different concepts or data, or may not be available in NetSuite2.com. To see how NetSuite.com fields map to NetSuite2.com fields, search for system_notes in the NetSuite.com Record ID column in the spreadsheet available in the NetSuite.com to NetSuite2.com Map help topic.
In addition to record and field name changes, some enumeration values are different in NetSuite2.com. To learn about such values, see the following table.
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Changes |
Related information |
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The enumeration values of standard fields are different in NetSuite2.com. |
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The enumeration values of context field are different in NetSuite2.com. |
To query all system notes through the analytics data source, you must have the Administrator role, or the System Notes permission. Without the Administrator role or the System Notes permission, the query result is limited to the system notes for changes you made yourself. For more information about permissions, including information about how to add permissions to existing roles, see Setting Permissions.
Depending on the data source you use, the number of system notes you see may be different. NetSuite2.com enhances the capabilities of querying your NetSuite data through the Connect Service. In NetSuite2.com, the following actions are excluded from system notes:
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Actions that are not linked to any record or field, including actions triggered by the system, such as accepting a terms of service agreement.
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Actions performed on fields that were removed or renamed.
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Actions performed on hidden features and preferences.
For more information about changing to the NetSuite2.com data source, see Changing from NetSuite.com to NetSuite2.com.
System Note Dataset in SuiteAnalytics
This section describes only System Notes. For information about the System Notes v2 dataset, see System Notes v2 Workbook.
You can create a custom dataset with System Note as the root record to analyze information about system notes, enter formulas, and set criteria filters. For more information about editing datasets, see Defining a Dataset.
You can add the following fields to the Data Grid:
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Context
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Field
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Line ID
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Name
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New Value
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Old Value
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Record
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Record ID
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Record Type
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Role
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Line Transaction ID
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Type
To make sure that Line Transaction ID displays an accurate value, create a formula field defined as {linetransactionid#raw} to display raw field values. For more information about using formulas in SuiteAnalytics, see Creating Formula Fields in SuiteAnalytics Workbook.
You can also use SuiteQL to query for Line Transaction ID and Line ID in the system note record. For more information, see SuiteQL in the N/query Module.