"The current numbering sequence has expired" - How to solve this error?

At the beginning of the year, you may encounter an error on the date when creating a sales invoice:

What does it mean?

If auto-numbering is enabled in your outbound settings, it'll only be valid for the period defined in the settings.

By default, auto-numbering ends on December 31st of the year in which your Billtobox was activated.

You'll get the error above when trying to create an invoice after the end date.

How to solve this?

There are 2 solutions:

1. First solution:
   You create a new numbering sequence with a prefix corresponding to the new accounting year. Set the prefix as follows:

   • Go to your Settings
     
     
   • Then Outbound
     
     
     
   • Click on Create online
     
     
     
   • Click on Add a numbering sequence template
     
     
     
     
   • Fill in the prefix (for example the current year), the start date and the end date of this sequence (for example from 01/01/2022 to 31/12/2022), and the next value (which will be used for the next invoice created on Billtobox, for example 2022-001 - cannot end with a 0). Then save.
     
     
     
   • Click on Create invoices online then choose the sequence template you just created as the default numbering sequence. In our example, we have used the 2022 prefix.
     
     
     
   • Save
     
     
     
     

2. Second solution:
   Resume the numbering where it left off the previous year. You just need to change the end date to a future date. Here's how:

   • Go to your Settings then click on Outbound
     
     
     
   • Click on Create online
     
     
     
   • Edit the End date to a date in the future (e.g. 31/12/2050)
     
     
     
   • Save
     
     

Why work this way?

Some companies choose their own logic for numbering their invoices.

Some use the current accounting year, followed by that year's invoice number. For example: 2022-014.

This option allows you to choose the start and end dates of a numbering sequence. In our example above, the 2022 sequence begins on January 1st, 2022 and will end on December 31st, 2022.

Next year, all you'll have to do is to repeat the process.