Working with SAP Business One solution for small and medium enterprises it is easy to face with the case that document numbers will not tell you more then just a sequential position of the certain document type. It is easy and straight forward approach how it is possible to embed a lot of information into the numbering and facilitate documents flow operations that are carried out by SAP Business One system users.

1. Classification: Public
12 March 2014
SAP BUSINESS ONE DOCUMENT
NUMBERING
NUMBER RANGES CONCEPT FOR DOCUMENTS IN SAP BUSINESS ONE
www.skybuffer.com

2. Agenda
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Default setting in SAP Business One
Documents Grouping
Number Ranges Concept
Advantages

3. What is available out of the box in SAP
Business One?
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When you create a new database (company) on SAP Business One (SBO) either
from localization template or from scratch, it will be the same settings for the
documents numbering that could be fine for some companies, unless they
would like to get more out of it.

4. Agenda
4
Default setting in SAP Business One
Documents Grouping
Number Ranges Concept
Advantages

5. Documents Grouping in SAP Business One
Let's assume that all documents could be divided to seven
groups, like it is done in SAP Business One navigation menu:
• Finance;
• Sales;
• Purchasing;
• Banking;
• Inventory;
• Production;
• Service.
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6. Agenda
6
Default setting in SAP Business One
Documents Grouping
Number Ranges Concept
Advantages

7. Documents Groups Leading Numbers
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The half of the document numbering process is done. Now it is time to select the
leading numbers for each group.
When user see the leading number of the document that he/she definitely know that
document belongs to either Sales or Purchasing or another labeled with the leading
number group.
In this example document groups in SAP Business One could be labeled as following:

8. Intervals Definition
The number of different documents in each group will lead to
the decision that two additional numbers should be used to
separate documents number ranges.
To be able to utilize the complete set of numbers it is possible to
divide the range for the certain group based on either uniform
distribution or based on the Customer requirements (for
instance, to assign more numbers to the document type that is
used quite often).
And, of course, the last number for each document number
range should be set as well to avoid the document numbering
crossing between different document types.
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9. Documents Numbering Solution
The following document numbering solution could be customized in SAP Business One:
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10. Custom Numbering Series for Document Type
Additionally, it is possible to define Series for each type of document. For instance,
Sales Orders could be differentiated by the type of products that are sold (either
Hardware or Software).
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11. Agenda
11
Default setting in SAP Business One
Documents Grouping
Number Ranges Concept
Advantages

12. Advantages
It's very easy to setup the document numbering in SAP Business
One using encapsulated number ranges for each document type.
There are many advantages of using such kind of approach, like:
• User friendly numbering helps to "catch" the document type
from the first sight;
• Separated number ranges reduce the number of mistakes in
the workflow processes handled by users;
• Additional labelling using the leading numbers on document
header could help to sort the documents and reduce time
that users usually spend on it.
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13. 13
SAP BUSINESS ONE DOCUMENT
NUMBERING
NUMBER RANGES CONCEPT FOR
DOCUMENTS IN SAP BUSINESS ONE
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