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No. Series overlap

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Posted on by SO-31070450-0

I am rather new to Business Central. The number series on P-INV purchase invoices began as 107001 and posted invoices P-INV+ began at 108001 which worked great that if an invoice had a number that began with 107 it was unposted and became a 108 number when posted. As you can see now there are enough Purchase Invoices in the system that the last number used for Purchase Invoices is 108021 Thus overlap. Is this ok or should the number series be set up differently. When I look at Cronos company I see it is set up the same structure.

Any advise on best practices would be greatly appreciated

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Dynamics 365 Business Central

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Mansi Soni 8,907 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hello,

Cronus is just a demo setup, so it’s not always the best example to follow. I’d recommend adjusting the number series now to avoid mix-ups down the line or you can set it like PINV and PPINV following by numbers to avoid confusion between Purchase Invoice and Posted Purchase Invoice No. Series.

Hope this answer will help you!

Regards,
Mansi Soni

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Gerardo Rentería Ga... 25,213 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi

You could create another new series, and relate them to each other.

Create number series - Business Central | Microsoft Learn

Best

Gr

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Jainam M. Kothari 15,631 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hello,

Your current number series setup in Business Central—using 107001 for unposted and 108001 for posted purchase invoices—is a good practice for clarity and auditability, but since the posted series has now overlapped with the unposted range, it’s best to adjust the series to avoid confusion.

Recommended approaches include increasing the gap between series (e.g., starting posted invoices at 200001), adding prefixes (like P-INV-UNP), or using date-based numbering to maintain uniqueness and clarity.

Cronus uses a similar setup for simplicity, but production environments benefit from more scalable configurations.

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YUN ZHU 95,331 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi, hope the following helps as well.

Dynamics 365 Business Central: Empty Posted Sales Invoice with only one comment “Document created to avoid gap in No. Series”? Why?

https://yzhums.com/35909/

Dynamics 365 Business Central: Manual number for Posted Sales invoice and Posted Purchase invoice (Use the same number in Sales Order and Posted Sales Invoice?)

https://yzhums.com/21537/

Thanks.

ZHU

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Sahib Dino 196 on at

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You're right to flag this, Sir but you are overlapping number series between unposted and posted documents can lead to confusion, especially when trying to trace document history or audit transactions.

📌 What’s Happening

Your current setup:

P-INV (Purchase Invoice): 107001 to 108999

P-INV+ (Posted Purchase Invoice): 108001 to 109999

This means numbers like 108021 could exist in both unposted and posted documents, which breaks the visual cue you originally relied on (107xxx = unposted, 108xxx = posted).

✅ Best Practices to Avoid Overlap

Here’s how you can cleanly separate the series:

Adjust the Ending No. of P-INV
Change the ending number of P-INV to 107999 so it never touches the posted range.

Start P-INV+ at 108000 or 108001
This keeps posted invoices clearly distinct.

Create a New Series for P-INV
If you’ve already crossed into 108xxx, consider creating a new series like PINV2 starting at 109001, and update the Purchase Invoice setup to use it going forward.

Use Prefixes for Clarity
Instead of numeric-only series, use prefixes like PINV- and PPINV- to visually separate them. For example:

PINV-107001
PPINV-108001

Avoid Using Cronus as a Benchmark
Cronus is a demo company — its setup is functional but not always ideal for production environments.

Thanks.

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