I am encountering an issue where I am trying to get an item field that I know has a value but suitescript returns an empty result. I have looked at the documentation and am sure I am using the correct name but even when I load the item in the debugger the field is empty, while it has a value when I view it in the UI.

sColumns.push(new nlobjSearchColumn('effectivedate'));

Is the way I'm getting it, I even tried joining by "member" from looking at the documentation (https://system.netsuite.com/help/helpcenter/en_US/srbrowser/Browser2016_1/script/record/assemblyitem.html) but no luck. Can anyone help?