Question about Sequentiality of Receipts and Invoices in Accounting

Accounting
1

Hi everyone,

I’m currently in the process of organizing receipts and invoices for my accounting records, and I have a couple of questions regarding sequentiality.

I’m wondering whether it’s necessary for receipt and invoice numbers to strictly adhere to chronological order. For example, is it acceptable for receipt number 6 to correspond to a purchase that occurred before receipt number 5? Similarly, could invoice number 22 have an issue date prior to invoice 21 (for example, if a client pays before I raise the invoice and I don’t realise and keep raising invoices for other clients in the meanwhile)?

Any insights or guidance you can provide on these matters would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time and assistance.

Best regards,

Daniele

2

Yes, that’s fine, and is the way that QuickFile operates - invoice and purchase numbers are assigned sequentially in the order the invoices were created, which need bear no resemblance to the chronological order by date.

The only requirement is that if you’re VAT registered then the numbering of sales invoices you issue must be sequential from one or more continuous series - if you get inspected and show them invoices 553 and 555 it’ll raise eyebrows if they ask for 554 and you can’t provide it. The “or more” allows schemes like restarting the numbering each year, as long as each series has no gaps within it, but in most cases it’s easiest to stick with one single series for everything (this is what QuickFile does by default).

3

Thank you, Ian. Sorry for being pedantic, I’m just afraid they way I phrased my question wasn’t perfect. When I talked about receipts and invoices, with the latter I meant the invoices I raise, my own sales. So does your answer apply to both my expenses and my sales? In other words, can I backdate an invoice I’m raising, even if I’ve already raised others with later dates, so that the new invoice is ahead in numbering but earlier in date?

Your example suggests yes (assuming the sequence of invoices stays unbroken), but could you confirm?

Thank you in advance,

Daniele

4

Yes, you can. Given the invoice number is assigned when you first create the draft invoice and you can edit anything on it after creation (though it’s generally bad practice to do so after the point where you’ve sent it to the customer) it would be impossible to enforce anyway.