What is a Number Series (No. Series) in Business Central?

The No. Series setup that controls how Business Central numbers documents, journals, and master data records, automatically or manually.

Number Series (No. Series) are how Business Central assigns numbers to everything: customers, items, sales orders, posted invoices, document numbers in journals. A series is defined on the No. Series page with one or more lines holding a starting number, an optional ending number, an increment, and a starting date, plus the last number used. Setup pages such as Sales & Receivables Setup or Purchases & Payables Setup point each document type at its series.

Three switches shape the behaviour. Default Nos. lets BC assign the next number automatically. Manual Nos. allows users to type their own number instead. Date Order enforces that numbers are assigned in chronological order. No. Series Relationships let one field offer several related series, so a user can pick, say, a different series for domestic and export orders.

About gaps: a number is consumed the moment a record is created, so deleting an unposted document leaves a hole unless the number is reused. The Allow Gaps in Nos. option switches a series to SQL number sequences, which is faster under heavy posting but can lose numbers. Many countries require gapless numbering for posted sales invoices, so leave it off for those series, and remember that posted document numbers can never be changed afterwards.

Practical habits: create a new series line per fiscal year with the starting date on the first day of that year, keep ranges wide enough to never run out mid-year, and set the warning number so users hear about exhaustion before posting stops.

Related terms

• Posting Date, The date that decides which accounting period a Business Central transaction lands in, distinct from the document date and the VAT date.
• General Ledger, The core accounting record in Business Central where all financial transactions are ultimately posted and stored.
• Purchase Order, A formal document sent to a vendor to order goods or services, with agreed quantities, prices, and delivery terms.
• Sales Credit Memo, The Business Central document that corrects or refunds a posted sales invoice, reversing revenue, VAT, and the customer balance.

How Zentriq helps

Zentriq's AI tools automate many of the manual processes around number series (no. series) in Business Central. Learn about the Zentriq Agent or try Zentriq PunchOut to see how AI simplifies procurement in BC.