The auto enter from previous record only works in the current session. If you close out and re-open the file there is no previous record. You would need to set up an open script to find the last record created and set those value(s) in some global fields then use the globals to populate the fields.

Another caveat is that the "previous record" can change, depending on the latest sort.

If it's really really important for you to have this feature, you can do it with an autoenter-calculation based on a serial number relationship in the current file. The basic idea is that each record is related to the previously entered field by means of a serial number field. The autoenter calculation looks up the previous record's field value and autoenters it into the new record. It's kind of messy and I don't recommend doing it unless it's critical to have.

I have a field set to "auto-enter" the value from the previous record. When I execute a new record request this field remains blank. Am I missing something simple?

i had this same problem in a file , I finally made a script to duplcate the record instead of new record ,"I had a lot of long medicine names I did not want to keep typing,"

then

using SetField["yourfield",""""]

in the script to set all the fields I did not want to copy to next record