If you have Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent connected, Mucka checks the invoice number before it sends. If your accounts software already has an invoice with that number, Mucka stops and shows you the number it would use instead.
Why it stops you
Your accounts software will not accept two invoices with the same number. So if the number is already taken, one of two things happens, and both are a nuisance:
- the invoice reaches your customer but never lands in your books, or
- you find out weeks later when the figures do not add up
The number is printed on the PDF your customer receives, and it is what they quote when they pay. Once that has gone out, the number is theirs and cannot be changed. So the moment before sending is the only point where this is still a five-second fix, which is why Mucka stops you there rather than telling you afterwards.
What to do
You get three choices.
Use the number Mucka suggests. This is the one to pick nearly every time. Mucka takes the next free number in your accounts software's own run, gives it to this invoice, and sends. Everything you invoice from then on carries on from that same run, so the two systems stay in step instead of drifting apart.
Go back. Nothing is sent. Useful if you want to look at the invoice in your accounts software first.
Send anyway. The invoice goes to your customer as it is, but it will not reach your accounts. You would need to add it in your accounts software yourself. Only worth it if the invoice has to go out this minute and you will square the books up later.
Why this happens
It is never your own invoice. Mucka puts an invoice into your accounts software as a draft as soon as you raise it, so there is usually already a copy of it over there with that number on it — that copy does not count, and Mucka no longer stops you because of it. If you are being stopped, something genuinely different is using the number.
Usually because the business was already running when it came to Mucka. Your accounts software has years of invoices in it, and Mucka started its own numbering separately, so the two runs overlap.
It used to also happen if you raised the odd invoice directly in your accounts software. That is now handled for you: every time Mucka gives an invoice a number, it first checks what your accounts software has got up to and carries on from there. So if you have raised three invoices in FreeAgent since your last one in Mucka, Mucka picks up after those three instead of landing on top of them. You do not have to do anything, and it only applies once you have set Mucka to follow your accounts software's numbering.
Taking the suggested number fixes it for good rather than just for today, because it moves Mucka's whole run past your accounts software's.
Finding out afterwards
Mucka only stops you at the send if you are emailing the invoice from Mucka. If you send it another way, by WhatsApp, or by downloading the PDF, or by just marking it as sent, there is nothing to stop.
So the invoice itself tells you. Open any invoice and, next to its status, you will see whether it has reached your accounts software. If it has not, the invoice says why in plain English: that the number is already used, or that your accounts software still needs a category picking, or simply that Mucka has not managed it yet and is still trying. The message clears itself the moment the invoice lands.
Worth a look if you raise invoices in both Mucka and your accounts software, since that is when the two runs are most likely to meet.
Changing a number yourself
You can give an invoice a different number while it is still a draft you have not sent. The quickest way is to ask: tell Mucka "change this invoice to 316" and it will do it and read the new number back to you. The other way is the sheet above — when a send is stopped by a clash, taking the number Mucka offers renumbers the invoice there and then.
Two different things share the word "number", and it is worth being clear which you want:
- "Change this invoice's number" changes the one in front of you and leaves everything else alone.
- "Start my invoices at 316" sets the number the next invoice gets. The one you are looking at keeps what it has.
Ask for either in those words and Mucka will do the right one.
You never need to delete an invoice to change its number. Deleting is permanent and takes every line with it, and there is no need for it here — a draft can simply be renumbered.
Once an invoice has gone to the customer, its number is fixed. So is one with a payment recorded against it, and one that has already reached your accounts software under its current number. In each of those cases something outside Mucka already refers to that number, and quietly changing it here would leave the two disagreeing.
If it has already gone across to Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent
That is the one people try to get round, and there is a wrong way to do it.
Deleting or voiding the invoice in your accounts software does not unlock it in Mucka. Mucka goes on its own record of having sent it across, so removing it at the other end changes nothing here, and you have destroyed an invoice for no reason.
What to do instead depends on what is actually wrong:
- This one invoice has the wrong number. Change it in your accounts software to match the one Mucka has, since that is the number on any copy your customer has been given.
- The whole run is out of step, so Mucka is on INV-004 while you are on 1068 over there. That is the numbering setting, not this invoice. Mucka now reads where your accounts software has got to and carries on from it on its own, so have a look at Settings, then Integrations.
Setting it up before it happens
You do not have to wait to be stopped. When you connect Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent, Mucka reads your last invoice number and offers to carry straight on from it. Taking that offer at connection time means the clash never comes up.
You can also set it by hand at any point in Settings → Business → Paperwork under Reference numbering: choose your prefix, how many digits, and the number to carry on from. Or just tell Mucka — "start my invoices at 360" — and it will set it and read the number back. There is more on that in Carry on your invoice numbers from your old system.