Out of the box Mucka numbers your invoices INV-001 and your quotes Q-001. If you have been running for years, that is the wrong place to start — your accountant wants the numbers to carry on, not restart.
You can pick up wherever you left off.
If Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent or Sage is connected, this is already done
Mucka reads your last invoice number out of your accounts software when you connect it, and carries straight on from there. If Xero finished at INV-0064, your next Mucka invoice is INV-0065 — same prefix, same number of digits, one run of numbers across both.
It keeps checking. Every time Mucka numbers an invoice it asks your accounts software where it has got to, so if you have raised a few invoices over there yourself in the meantime, Mucka carries on after those instead of landing on a number that is already taken.
Because your accounts software owns the invoice numbering while it is connected, the Invoices row in Settings reads Follows Xero (or whichever you have connected) and opens to explain why rather than offering you boxes. There is nothing to set, and anything you did set would be overwritten by the next invoice. Quote numbering is still yours, since no accounts package holds quote numbers.
If you would rather number invoices yourself, disconnect the accounts software. Your numbering stays exactly where it is — nothing restarts — and the boxes come back.
The rest of this page is for businesses with no accounts software connected.
Just tell Mucka
The quickest way is to say it:
"Start my invoices at 360"
"My last invoice was 359, carry on from there"
"What number will the next invoice be?"
Mucka sets it and reads the number back to you. Ask it what the next one will be and it will tell you without raising anything — you never need to create a test invoice to find out.
Only the business owner can change the numbering, and it cannot be done over the phone. It is the number printed on documents your customers and your accountant keep, so it stays on the surfaces where you can see what you are agreeing to.
If your accounts software is connected, Mucka will tell you it follows that instead, and set your quote numbering if that is what you meant.
Or set it in Settings
It lives in Settings → Business → Paperwork under Numbering. The row shows the number your next invoice will use — tap it to change it.
Continue from is the number your next document will use. If your old system finished at 359, put 360 — not 359.
That is the one thing worth being careful about. It is the next one out, not the last one in.
Keeping your own format too
If you also want your own prefix — WGP- instead of INV-, say — switch on use my own format for invoices or quotes. You then get:
- Prefix, whatever goes before the number
- Digits, how many zeros it pads to, so 360 can print as 00360
- Preview, showing exactly what the next one will look like
You do not have to switch that on to continue your numbering. Continue from works on Mucka's normal INV- and Q- format as well, so if you are happy with INV- you can just set the number and leave the rest alone.
Invoices and quotes are set separately. Changing one does not touch the other.
What it does not change
Anything already raised keeps the number it was given. Setting the numbering only affects documents created from that point on — it never renumbers your history.
If the number is already taken
Mucka will not let you set a number that would reissue a reference you have already used. It tells you which one is in the way and you pick a higher one.
That is deliberate: two invoices with the same number means one of them is wrong, and if the first has already gone to a customer, the wrong one is the new one.
If you have Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent or Sage connected there is a second kind of clash — a number your accounts software has used but Mucka has not. Following your accounts software's numbering is what prevents most of these; the ones that get through are covered in That number is already used in your accounts software.