Accounting on the Go Series-34: Effortless Transaction Numbering-Configuring Prefixes with Placeholders in Zoho Books Mobile App

Accounting on the Go Series-34: Effortless Transaction Numbering-Configuring Prefixes with Placeholders in Zoho Books Mobile App

Hi everyone,

In business, maintaining a systematic numbering of transactions is crucial for organization and clarity in financial records. Each transaction, whether it's an invoice, receipt, or purchase order, is assigned a unique number to track its progression and maintain accurate records. However, manually assigning these numbers can be time-consuming and prone to errors. While Zoho Books already provides an option to generate transaction numbers, we've taken it a step further with automated numbering using placeholders, making the process even more efficient and detailed, even for businesses with higher transaction volumes.

With placeholders, you can dynamically configure your transaction numbers based on various parameters such as fiscal year start, fiscal year-end, transaction year, transaction date, and transaction month. This flexibility allows you to customize your numbering system to align with your business's specific needs and preferences.

Consider a retail business that experiences a surge in sales during the holiday season. As the year-end approaches, the company prepares for increased transaction volume and needs to streamline its invoicing process to accommodate the uptick in sales. By leveraging placeholders in their invoice numbering system, they can automatically generate unique invoice numbers based on the transaction date or month, ensuring seamless tracking and organization of sales data during this busy period. We have, of course, extended this to the mobile app as well.

Supported OS: iOS

Prerequisite: While transaction numbers can be auto-generated in all plans, the addition of placeholders is a feature exclusive to the Premium plan and above.

How it works in Zoho Books iOS app

1. Open the Zoho Books mobile app.
2. Navigate to the "Invoices" module.
3. Click on the "+ New" button to create a new Invoice.
4. Now, click on the gear button next to "Invoice#" and then click on the "+" button next to Prefix.
5. Here, you can choose any placeholder from the following options: Fiscal Year Start, Fiscal Year End, Transaction Year, Transaction Date, Transaction Month.
6. Once you select your preference, the placeholder will be added next to the given Prefix. If needed, you can also make changes to the beginning of the prefix and the next number as well.
7. As you keep generating transactions, the placeholder will automatically take the value and generate the Invoice number.
8. You can follow the same steps to set up the prefix for other transaction modules.









Let’s understand with an example:

Suppose we choose the prefix "INV" and add the placeholders for Transaction Year and Transaction Month, followed by a sequential suffix starting from 001.The format would be: INV-%FYS_YY%-%MM%-001.

If we create an invoice today, with the current year as 2024 and the current month as May, the transaction number would be INV-24-05-001.

This setup allows the placeholders and suffix to update automatically in sequential order and according to the date.

Note: In addition to placeholders, Zoho Books offers the flexibility to restart transaction numbers from the next fiscal year and supports multiple transaction series. These features can be used in combination with each other, allowing you to customize and generate the necessary transaction numbers according to your business requirements.

Android users, do not worry; we will explore the possibilities to introduce it in the Android app as well.

Try this feature right now to reduce manual errors and maintain accurate records effortlessly by clicking on this link or download the mobile app using the QR code below.



If you have any questions, let us know at support+mobile@zohobooks.com.

Regards,
Tanisha Choudhury
Zoho Books


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