Entry numbering

A form can give every entry filed against it a document number — INV-000001, GRN-000042 — so a submission can be quoted in a conversation, on an invoice, or in an audit without describing it by date and author.

Numbering is per form. Each form runs its own sequence.

Switching it on

In the form builder, under Document numbering.

The toggle is its own switch, and the prefix box only appears once it is on — a form that does not number its entries never shows a box asking for a prefix.

Switching it on numbers the entries you already have

It is not only applied from now onwards. Every entry the form has already collected is given a number, so an existing form does not end up with a numbered recent history and an unnumbered older one that nobody can quote.

You are told how many entries that affects and asked to confirm first.

The prefix

The letters in front of each number. Up to 8 characters.

If you do not choose one, Trackapt suggests the first three letters or digits of the form's name, uppercased:

Form name	Suggested prefix
Invoice	INV
Goods Received Note	GOO
QC Check	QCC

Punctuation and spaces are skipped rather than counted, so a prefix never contains a space. A name with no letters or digits at all produces no suggestion, and you are asked to type one.

How a number reads

The prefix, a hyphen, and the running number padded to six digits:

INV-000001
INV-000002
...
INV-001247

The hint under the prefix box previews the next number rather than the first, so a form already part-way through its run shows what the next document will actually say instead of an INV-000001 issued months ago.

Where the number appears

On the entry itself, on the submissions list, and on anything the entry is exported or shared as.

Things worth knowing

The format does not change casually. Numbers are stored on documents people have printed and filed, so the shape of a number is deliberately not something that shifts underneath an existing run.

Changing the prefix does not renumber history. Entries keep the number they were issued. Only new ones take the new prefix.

The sequence never goes backwards, so gaps stay. The counter only counts up. A deleted entry leaves its number unused rather than handing it to the next one — a gap in a document sequence is a fact worth being able to see, and reusing a number would give two different documents one identifier.

Six digits is fixed, not a setting. The width is what makes a run of numbers sort and read as a column. Narrowing it midway would leave one form producing INV-000999 and INV-1000 — two shapes for one sequence, neither sorting against the other.

Two people filing at once still get different numbers. The counter is incremented as it is read rather than read and then written, so simultaneous submissions cannot compute the same number.