Custom invoice number rules

Feature Request
1

Hi,

I just stumbled over the new feature of Quickfile allowing hyphens in invoice numbers.

Now, with hyphens and alphanumeric characters in place, I would love to see the following to be implemented:

Reason(s):

  • Giving customers easier invoice numbers instead of an ineligible string of 10 digits
  • Not giving away any information on size or business activity in serial invoice numbers
  • I highly doubt that HMRC - or accounting best practices - require that invoice numbers must be sequential at all times. Only that they are unique and unequivocally identifiable.

Specifically the second reason is an issue for smaller businesses - because invoice numbers (across customers) become predictable!

Feature request:

  • Allow configuring per-customer sequential invoice numbers
  • If set, the invoice “number” (ID, really) of a newly raised invoice would be constructed from the customer’s prefix plus the “next sequential number”
  • The “next sequential number” could be derived from the last invoice raised for that customer, or any other algorithm
  • If not set, the “next sequential number” could be derived from the last raised invoice for a client that has no invoice prefix set.
  • The invoice prefix could be suggested by a condensing algorithm in the client admin UI (but editable), and further enforced to be unique.

Optional:

  • Enforce invoice “numbers” being unique across an entire quickfile account. Make it even a feature of the power subscription!

Thoughts?

2

Hi @Michel

Admittedly, HMRC guides are often open to interpretation. However the HMRC guide suggests that an invoice must have:

Unique invoice number that follows on from the last invoice

Which suggests it should be sequencial.

This is already the case - when you save the invoice, it should flag up if the invoice number has already been used.

I hope this helps?

3

The guideline as I understand it is that invoice numbers should come from one or more sequential series (ref) - nothing wrong with splitting them by month/year/type/whatever, the point is that whatever numbering you choose needs to be such that if your affairs are inspected then they can tell you’ve given them the complete set of records and can spot anything that’s missing. For example if they see 2018-AB-0757 and 2018-AB-0759 but not 2018-AB-0758 then that will raise eyebrows.

4

Hi Ian,

Thanks for that - that confirms unequivocally that my approach is right - and your example perfectly matches my actual scheme, which is YYCMPYSSS which I now can make more clear into: YY-CMPY-SSS

With:
YY - the accounting year (which is for me identical with the calendar year)
CMPY - An identifier for the company or customer (I usually deal in B2B)
SSS - a serial number for that company

If I could set the prefix in the customer UI to something like “[YY]-AAAA-” and [YY] recognised to be updated in the year end process, that would be ever so cool. :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Michel

5

Same here - but our invoices are prefixed by project code and then sequential range (e.g. Z111-101, Z111-102). QF seems to try its best (it’ll next suggest Z111-103 but for an entirely different customer / project).

6

Currently the next invoice number is always the last one + 1.

AAAA becomes AAAB
1234 becomes 1235
and so on.

7

Yes that’s correct - however RJL (and others) are apparently confused about the inner mechanics from where Quickfile picks the base invoice number, in your examples these would be AAAA and 1234.

Quickfile implements the model that there is only one source of invoice numbers across one Quickfile account, across all customers, projects etc.

RJL (and presumably many others, including me) on the other hand operate a different model of invoice number generation: I operate a model of invoice numbers based on my clients, RJL operates one based on projects, and I am sure that there are many more models.

Quickile’s argument is that their model is the only one that satisfies HMRC’s requirement of unique invoice numbers, whereas others have pointed out that the alternatives used by RJL and me are also satisfying HMRC’s requirement.

Quickfile’s current implementation uses the invoice number of the last invoice created on the account as the basis for the new invoice number is arguable the easier way to implement.

8

Yes - it’s not even an annoyance (I always had to type them in my old system), so not a problem in any way, but if a feature were added to allow a prefix or prefixes of some kind, that would be nice. For projects, though, I think it would be hard as one would have to have some way to indicate what project the invoice was for.

I suppose what could be done, perhaps, would be to have a set of prefixes from which you could choose one when creating a new invoice (with an associated range).