Unlike the Design module, the Purchasing module produces numbered documents that are important parts of the auditing (and possibly legal) documention for your work. To understand how the numbering works, there are several points to keep in mind:

Source of Document Numbers

Unless you have entered a "PO Prefix" on the Project screen for a specific project (see below), the initial number is based on the "Last ... number" value for orders, check requests or invoices that you enter on the Setup Form. The next number used will be the value you enter plus 1. You cannot enter a number that is less than the current value.

If you have a separate data system that also issues numbered documents of the same type, you can keep these from interfering with each other by setting the "last ... number" value to an extremely high one to "move" the FF&EZ numbers to a separate number range. 

For instance, if your existing accounting system has been issuing miscellaneous purchase orders, with the last being PO #4321, you can enter "99999" as the last PO number in FF&EZ so that it's first PO is PO #100000. It is unlikely that these two ranges will intersect and this leaves over 99 million POs that FF&EZ can handle with its eight-digit PO number. 

Sequential Order Numbering for Projects

For projects, you have the option of creating sequentially numbered purchase orders for each project (or any you choose). This is done before you issue the first order for that project by entering a unique "prefix" on the Projects screen and deciding how many digits to allow for the numeric portion.

Best practice: Avoid purely numeric prefixes unless you include at least one alphabetic character or use a separator character (a dash, dot or space is recommended). This is because the "Find" function will search for an order with that exact number instead of treating it as a prefix. 

Voiding Documents

The system is designed to ensure a continuous sequence of documents. Invalid or cancelled documents are voided so that there are no gaps in the numbers that need to be explained. In contrast to earlier versions, as of version 4.2.020, the only option for orders, check requests and invoices is to void the document. 

To minimize the need to void documents, document numbers are assigned as soon as they become necessary, but not before that.

When Document Numbers Are Assigned / Confirming "Final" Printing

When printing orders, check requests and invoices, both the [Print Final] and the [>PDF] buttons are considered "final printing" commands.

Purchase order numbers are assigned when they are created from the FF&E that makes up their line items, since unissued purchase orders may be involved in communications about final pricing or shipping amounts. 

The number for a manually-created order is assigned when you save the new order.

Check request and invoice numbers are assigned at the time of final printing and  only recorded if you answer "yes" to the "Did all documents print correctly?" question that appears after the documents have printed. That is, the successful printing of the document is what finalizes the list of items that were processed on it, allowing the document number to be recorded. 

This is needed in order to preserve numbering continuity in a multi-user system while also giving you the flexibility to cancel if there is something wrong with the printed output. If you do not answer "yes," the numbering is not saved and other users can print their own properly numbered documents between that point and when you retry your own.

Important: If your system is a multi-user version, always confirm the document printing question as soon as possible to avoid creating a conflict with other users who might need to access the orders that are involved. 

Never send a check request or an invoice unless you have completed the "Print Final" process and answered "yes" to confirm that the documents printed correctly. If you do not complete the process, the unconfirmed document number(s) could be later used by other users to issue a check request or invoice with the same number.