Hi @vgledhill
You can make use casting to explicitly declare a saved value into the type that you desire.
Here is an example:
<?php
//code goes in functions.php file
function my_acf_format_value( $value, $post_id, $field ) {
// cast the value returned by all text field into integers
$value = (int)$value;
// return
return $value;
}
add_filter('acf/format_value/type=text', 'my_acf_format_value', 10, 3);
?>
I hope this info helps.