Invoice numbers and numbering patterns
Choosing a prefix and a pattern, what the yearly reset actually does to your counter, and why a number is never reused.
You never type an invoice number. Steerd assigns it when you issue, from a pattern you configure once in Settings, Invoicing.
The parts
A number is a prefix plus a pattern.
- The prefix is free text, for example
RE-. - The pattern is one of two shapes, and you choose by choosing how you want the counter to behave.
| Pattern | Looks like | Counter |
|---|---|---|
{YYYY}-{NNNN} | RE-2026-0043 | restarts at 1 each January |
{NNNN} | RE-0043 | runs continuously, forever |
The number of Ns is the padding. {NNNN} pads to four digits, {NNNNNN} to six.
Steerd previews the next number as you edit the settings, so you can see the shape before it is real.
The yearly reset moves you to a different counter
This is the part that surprises people. The counter is kept per year when you reset annually, and in a single shared bucket when you do not.
So switching the reset on or off does not renumber anything and does not continue where you left
off. It moves you to a different counter, which may be at a completely different value. If you
have issued RE-0087 continuously and you switch to an annual reset, the next number comes from
this year's counter, which may well be RE-2026-0001.
That is legitimate, and it is also the sort of thing to decide once at the start of a year rather than in the middle of one.
A number is never reused
Once a number is on an issued invoice, no other invoice will ever carry it, including after a correction. A correction gets its own number.
Gaps are allowed. A missing number in your sequence is not an error to be repaired, and trying to close a gap by reusing a number is the one thing you must not do.
Changing the prefix later
You can. It affects only invoices issued from then on; everything already issued keeps the number it was issued with, because that number is part of a document you have already sent.