Just Joined the Salesforce Community & Pre-populate related Data fields question

[EME2p]

I'm wrapping up a project where I designed the functionality of a Salesforce database for our team. Now I'm taking over as Administrator, and plan to add some more features myself.

My first post is to ask how to pre-populate fields on a page of an Object we created with data pulled from a customized "Account" field.

eg:  A client is entered as an Account

       Within the client's Account level entry, there are a few fields, but for example's sake, one is called "Account Number"

        The client has a transaction

        This transaction appears as an object related to the client

         The object for the client's transaction also has a field called "Object Account Number"

         When a user enters details about the client's new transaction, how do I get the "Account Number" (from their Account main level entry) 

               to appear automatically in the "Object Account Number" field?

I'm rather a newbie, so any detailed help would be great.

Cheers

[Stevemo]

What is the object relationship  between the Account and the Transaction?  is it Parent-Child, or Master Detail?  

If it's Master-Detail you should be good to go with a straight formula field. 

[EME2p]

I believe it's a Parent-Child relationship.

[Stevemo]

You can still do it, here's what you need:

Custom Object FieldDataType: Formula  (Text)Formula:Account__r.AccountNumber

 

[EME2p]

Ok - thank you very much!

Another route I was thinking of following is creating a button on the Object level that would populate the specific data fields from the Account level when clicked. The user could then save this to the Object. Are you familair with how to do this too? 

I very much appreciate your help, btw.

[Stevemo]

I haven't done much with buttons in a long, long time, but that certainly sounds feasible.

[EME2p]

Great to hear. I'll post another thread related to that.

Thank you for your help again.