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Every document you create in Accounting — invoices, bills, journal entries, quotations, expenses, payments — gets a unique reference number automatically. This page explains the numbering format, how the counters work, and when you can supply your own number. Where this applies: numbering happens automatically as you create documents across /accounting/invoices, /accounting/bills, /accounting/journal-entries, /accounting/quotations, /accounting/expenses, and /accounting/payments.

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The number format

Hitaji 360 builds each document number from three parts:
  • PREFIX — a short code identifying the document type (see the table below).
  • YEAR — the four-digit calendar year the number was issued.
  • NNNNNN — a running counter, zero-padded to six digits.
For example, the first invoice issued in 2026 is INV-2026-000001, the next is INV-2026-000002, and so on.

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Prefixes by document type

Receipts (RCP) and outgoing payments (PMT) use separate counters, so the two streams of numbers don’t interleave. Some other documents (bank loans, petty cash) have their own series as well.

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How the counters work

  • Per business, per document type. Each business’s accounting book keeps its own counters. Business A’s invoices and Business B’s invoices number independently, starting from 1 each. This follows the one-business-one-book model — see Accessing Accounting.
  • Gap-free. The counters are designed to never skip a number. Even if two people create invoices at the exact same moment, the system serialises them so you get a clean, unbroken sequence (…000004, 000005, 000006). This matters for compliance: tax authorities generally expect sequential, gap-free invoice and bill numbers.
  • Automatic. You don’t have to set up, reset, or increment anything. The next number is assigned the moment a document needs one.
  • Year in the number. The year shown is the year the number is generated. The counter itself keeps running (it is not forced to reset to 1 each January), so the year acts as a readable prefix rather than a hard reset boundary.

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Supplying your own number

In most flows the number is assigned for you. There are places where you may provide your own reference instead:
  • When importing opening balances, each customer-invoice and vendor-bill line can carry its own document number (e.g. the original invoice number from your old system). If you leave it blank, Hitaji 360 generates one in the standard format. See Opening Balances.
  • When recording a payment, you can supply a reference number; otherwise a RCP/PMT number is generated.
If you supply your own number, make sure it is unique within that document type for the business.

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Can I change the prefixes or format?

The prefixes (INV, BILL, JE, …) and the PREFIX-YEAR-NNNNNN layout are defined by the system and are not editable from a settings screen in the current build. They are deliberately standardised so that documents are instantly recognisable and audit-friendly across every business. If you need a different scheme, the supported route today is to supply your own number on the documents that allow it (above).