How do you number your transactions and documents? Whether you need special numbering based on your country, your industry’s expectations, or your company’s own unique preferences, the NetSuite Advanced Numbering feature gives you the flexibility you need. Let’s dive in!

Overview

How exactly does this feature work? One thing that’s important to understand is the difference between regular numbering and advanced numbering. You can set up regular document and transaction numbering on the Set Up Auto-Generated Numbers page, which you can access by navigating to Setup > Company > Auto-Generated Numbers. On this page, you can set basic numbering preferences for record categories like your entities, documents, and transactions. The options you have vary based on the record category, but most of these would allow you to set a prefix or suffix, to provide the minimum amount of digits, and to set the initial number. 

NetSuite Advanced numbering, on the other hand, expands your numbering options to account for things like the fiscal year, subsidiary, location, and transaction date in your numbering. To accomplish advanced numbering, you would need to set up specific numbering rules for each record type. 

Setting Up NetSuite Advanced Numbering

Your first step in setting up advanced numbering is to enable the Advanced Numbering feature. You’ll find this feature in the ERP General section of the Company tab in Enable Features. After enabling the feature, there are several more setup tasks you need to complete.

Select Record Types for Advanced Numbering

You will need to turn on advanced numbering for documents and transactions. For documents, navigate to Setup > Company > Auto-Generated Numbers, and choose the Document Numbers subtab. In the column immediately to the right of each document type name, you’ll see the Advanced Numbering column. Any document types that are eligible for Advanced Numbering will have checkbox in this column. You will simply need to select the types that you want to use Advanced Numbering on, and then save the page. 

To select record types for Advanced Numbering on transactions, first you will need to ensure that the Transaction Numbers subtab is available on the Set Up Auto-Generated Numbers page. To enable this subtab, go to General Preferences (Setup > Company > Preferences > General Preferences) and select the checkbox Show Transaction Numbering Setup. After saving this page, navigate back to the Set Up Auto-Generated Numbers page and choose the Transaction Numbers subtab. As with the Document Numbers subtab, here you will select the checkbox next to any eligible transaction types that you wish to use advanced numbering on. 

Create Advanced Numbering Rules

Now, you’re ready to create some advanced numbering rules. On the Set Up Auto-Generated Numbers page, you’ll notice on both the Document Numbers and Transaction Numbers subtabs that any record types you had selected for advanced numbering now have a Setup link next to them. 

Selecting this link will take you to the Advanced Numbering Rule Set page, where you will see all the numbering rules that have been applied to this record type. To start with, there should be only one rule: the standard rule for that record type. This rule pulls any criteria you had set for this record type prior to selecting it for advanced numbering. 

To add an advanced numbering rule, select the New Rule button. This will take you to the Advanced Numbering Rule page. On this page, you will name your new rule. Then, under the Numbering Format field group, you can set the prefix, suffix, minimum number of digits, and initial number. As you make selections in this field group, you’ll be able to see how your numbering system will appear in the Number Preview field to the far right. 

Sequences by Segment and Criteria

On the Advanced Numbering Rule page, you’ll see the Sequences by Segment subtab. When you’re setting up a transaction numbering rule, you’ll be able to choose fiscal year, location, and subsidiary as possible segments. Each of these segments has a unique numbering sequence. You can also layer segments. Each segment combination, then, would have its own corresponding numbering sequence. 

Before you save this page, you’ll need to set criteria for when this rule applies, which you can do under the Criteria subtab. Some of the main types of criteria that you could set include date, location, country, subsidiary, and posting period. 

Conclusion

Once you save any customized numbering rules, the transactions and/or documents that they apply to will display the new numbering system. If you enjoyed learning about how NetSuite advanced numbering works, be sure to subscribe to our mailing list below to receive our weekly NetSuite blogs right in your inbox.