Invoice numbering

wadge

Can I create invoice numbers of the following format?

yyyymmdd/x - where x is an incremental number resest to 1 everyday. eg. If I created two invoices today, they would have numbers 20050516/1, 20050516/2 and one created tommorow would be 20050516/1.

Would the IR be OK with this?

Thanks.

bridiej

It's a bit confusing as they are long numbers plus the numbers are the same so will make it really difficult to trace back individual invoices.

wadge

I'm only producing 10 or so invoices a week. So tracing them won't be too bad.

Hunnymonster

Perhaps modifying it slightly might make it more 'friendly'

yyyymmddnn - where nn is the sequential invoice number padded with leading zeroes so the first invoice today is 2005051601 and the 10th is 2005051610.

Means you could keep a summary sheet in Excel (or similar) for instant reference - with the slashes in that would be more tricky.

wadge

Hunnymonster wrote:

Perhaps modifying it slightly might make it more 'friendly'

yyyymmddnn - where nn is the sequential invoice number padded with leading zeroes so the first invoice today is 2005051601 and the 10th is 2005051610.

Means you could keep a summary sheet in Excel (or similar) for instant reference - with the slashes in that would be more tricky.

good point.

Can anyone confirm that the IR will be happy for me to issue like this?

Savvy_Sue

I don't think the IR will care what numbers - if any - you put on your invoices, as long as you can demonstrate that the income coming in bears some resemblance to what you have sent out invoices for (ie that you're not hiding money so you don't have to declare it to the IR!)

Your accountant, on the other hand, might want some rational system. Which yours is, and never mind if the numbers are a bit long. Makes you look very impressive!

I think I only issued two invoices a month, to different organisations, when I was self employed, so mine just had a month and year on them, no numbers at all.

Nelski

You can number your invoices anyway you like as far as I know as long as you can produce them all in order if need be!! When I started my business I didnt want to start with invoice number 1 as i thought it might make my customer jittery! so checked with accountant and it is entirely up to you.

wadge

thanks people.

heleen

You can also ad dwords to your invoice numbers if you want. FOr example, I do teh date and then the first 3 letters of the client. You could do the day of the week or so. But yes, the IR dont' care what system you use.

Debt_Free_Chick

I just use the year and an incremental number e.g. 2005_01 etc. Remember, that the date of issue is printed on the invoice so using the full date as a reference as well seems ... ermmm ... a little repetitive and not completely necessary.

Absolutely nothing wrong with what you're doing - just another suggestion for you to consider

VeryTrying_2

wadge wrote:

Can anyone confirm that the IR will be happy for me to issue like this?

The IR won't find it a problem but the VAT people can be a bit anal about it all. Years ago I did the books for a business that became VAT registered. There were so few invoices that they were traced just by the date of issue (there were only two or three a month).

But that wasn't good enough for the VAT inspector - she insisted that each one had to have a proper invoice number. So I sat down there and then, and gave them one. The first one was number 10246, the next 47, the next 00987, etc. etc, all totally at random. When she saw what I'd done, she complained it made it hard for her to check them. So I pointed out that the rules did not say that the numbers had to be SEQUENTIAL.

I know it was foolish to be such a smart !!!!!! but luckily my books were squeaky clean, so I got away with it but I'm sure she really wanted to find something wrong to make me suffer.