Choose the numbers people see, before the first document — transcript

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This presentation is for you if you are setting GadgetSphere up, or about to open a new company or branch, and you want to know which number your bank reconciliation, your auditor, your customers and the tax authority work from, and to choose what you can. In about eleven minutes you will decide who sees which number, put a prefix where it can live, get the requests to support in before the first document, learn a month-end check for the faults you cannot fix yourself, and ask for a reset safely.

Step 1 — Decide which number each reader will see

After this step you will know which number each outside reader works from, and can decide it before go-live. They are not the same number. When your team reconciles the bank, the bank reconciliation report names each document by its short code and its Doc No (Tenant), so that is the number to match statement lines against, and the one to give an auditor who is working from that report. On paper, your customer sees whatever your printable format prints. Malaysia’s tax authority, LHDN, receives an invoice ID taken from a separate e-invoice running number, or the document type and tenant number when that is blank, and the E-Invoice Number itself is assigned by LHDN, not by you. So before GadgetSphere opens, decide which number your receipts print, write it down, and tell every auditor which document and number you are giving them.

Reference: The Generic Document — Which number the bank, the auditor or the tax authority actually sees

Step 2 — Put a prefix on the printout, not in the number

After this step GadgetSphere’s receipts can carry a branch-style number without changing how numbers are stored. The stored numbers are plain integers, and nothing adds a prefix, a year or zero-padding to them. The printable format is the place for that. A format chooses which number it prints and under what heading, and it can print the branch code beside it, so a GS-KV-01 bill can read KV01, then 1000017, while the tenant number stays the audit trail underneath. If you do print the branch number, remember that it repeats across branches, so it means nothing without the branch beside it. Test one printout from two branches side by side before go-live. How each branch picks its default layout is a subject of its own, in the printable formats reference.

Reference: Document Numbering — Step 2: Put the right number on the printout

Step 3 — Ask for a starting number before the first document

After this step you will know when a starting number is possible and when it is too late. No screen sets one. What the platform supports is a starting value that BigLedger support records before a counter exists: when that counter is first created, it begins from your value instead of the default. Say GadgetSphere wants cash bills to start at 5,000,001 on the day the tills go live. Support sets the tenant-level start for the cash-bill type before the first bill, and that bill takes 5,000,001. A company or branch start is a separate value for that company or branch. Once a single document of that type has been numbered at that level, the counter exists and the starting value is never read. So put the request on the go-live checklist, and check the first document’s number on day one.

Reference: Document Numbering — Step 3: Start a sequence at a number of your choosing — before the first document

Step 4 — Set the code prefixes before the first customer or supplier

After this step new customers, suppliers and employees get codes in the shape you chose. When a record is saved without a code, BigLedger builds one from a prefix for that kind of record and a running number from the same counter table. The prefix is a tenant setting that no screen edits today, so ask support to set it. With the prefix C and the default start, the first customer code is C1000000. Three details matter. A code somebody typed is never overwritten. A record still in the TEMP state gets no code until it is made active. And the generator skips numbers already used as codes, so a tenant that imported customers with numeric codes can see its generated codes jump past them. That is why the prefixes belong before the first record and before any import, not after.

Reference: Document Numbering — Customer, supplier and employee codes come from the same table

Step 5 — Run the month-end number check

After this step you will have a check to run each month and know which faults you cannot fix from a screen. Start with the Sales Invoice listing, which always shows all three number columns: a finalised row should carry all three, a draft the tenant number only. To check a run, open the advanced search, choose the company, enter a Company No from and to, and export the result. Keep both ends the same number of digits, because the range compares them as text. A number missing from the run is a question to ask, not proof of a deleted invoice: a number can be spent without reaching a document. On the cash bill listing, which has no company column, look for a finalised bill with a blank branch number, which a busy till can leave behind. Nothing retries a blank number, so send support the list of documents to fill in.

Reference: Sales Invoice (Internal) — Screens and menus

Step 6 — Tell a real duplicate from the design, and reset safely

After this step you can answer “two documents have the same number” and ask for a reset without creating the problem. First check the document type and the level. A sales invoice and a purchase invoice can both be 1000583, and two branches each having a bill numbered 41 is the design working. Beyond that, nothing in the database refuses a duplicate, so look first at any integration that sends its own number. The other way in is a reset, a background job that moves the counter for that document type at every level at once, tenant, companies, branches, locations and devices, without looking at your documents. The numbers already in each pool still go out first, and the next five hundred are counted up from your value. So ask support for a value above both the highest number on any document and every counter’s current figure.

Reference: The Generic Document — “Two documents have the same number”

Check yourself

Three to five questions on what you just heard. Every correct answer links to the page that makes it correct, so you can check the source, not just the mark.

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