due to the way our business is set up, we enter orders under a parent account and we link the location/branch (child account) at the line item level. We have a field on the Sales Order where we need to pull the branch/location number but the only connection in the sales order record would be the account we enter in the line item. How can I source this with either SQL or SuiteScript? Is it possible to load that customer record and get that value?

you probably want to switch to native field labels for whatever you are describing

No native fields involved unfortunately. All Custom

what is a parent account

ever heard of parent/child relationships in netsuite?

yes

there. For instance, let's say customer is McDonalds, we bill the parent and we enter Sales Orders under that same account but at the line item level we tie in the child account (image attached) which would be the McD location

still doing the confusing thing with accounts/location