Clear Books has two broad categories of invoices: Sales Invoices and Bills (Purchase Invoices) with the former being those that you send to customers and the latter those that you receive from suppliers. 


By default Clear Books uses the prefix INV for sales invoices and the prefix PUR for bills.


A supplier will most likely use its own invoice numbering system on the purchase invoices it sends to you. You can note add this invoice number to the Reference field when creating the bill in Clear Books. The PUR prefix is primarily used to uniquely identify the bill within your account.



You can use our bank explain feature to explain transactions which don't have an invoice or bill. Once these are explained the system will generate an invoice/bill document prefixed REC for sales invoices and PAY for purchase invoices.

Sales documents


The following types of sales documents are available in Clear Books.


INV - Sales Invoice.

REC - Sales Invoice created by the system from money received.

SCN - Sales Credit Note.

SRF - Sales Refund.

SRC - Sales Recurring template.

SBD - Sales Bad Debt.

SDT - Sales Draft Invoice.

QTE - Quote.

EST - Estimate

PF - Proforma

SO - Sales order


The last four are available in Sales > Quotes but first have to be enabled by the Quotes toggle feature in Settings > Configure system.

Purchase documents


The following types of purchase documents are available in Clear Books.


PUR - Purchase Bill.

PAY - Purchase Bill created by the system from money paid out.

PCN - Purchase Credit Note.

PRF - Purchase Refund.

PRC - Bills recurring template.

PBD - Purchase Bad Debt.

PDT - Purchase Draft Invoice.

PO - Purchase order


The last type is available in Purchases > Purchase orders but first has to be enabled via the Purchase orders toggle feature in Settings > Configure system.

Voided documents


When any of the above are voided (deleted) they are saved under Void Invoices or Void Bills with the addition of a "V". For example a void sales invoice would have the prefix VINV whereas a void sales credit note would have the prefix VSCN. Voided transactions do not affect the figures of any reports.


Changing prefixes & Invoice numbering


If you would rather use your own prefixes instead of INV and PUR you can alter the default prefixes in Settings > Configure system > Preferences. You are also able to set your own prefixes and numbering on any invoices and bills you import via Tools > Import.


Typically your sales invoice numbering will start from INV000001. Should you wish to start from a number other than 1, you can set your starting number in Settings > Configure system > Preferences. There are also limited renumbering facilities in Toggle features and, again, automatic numbering can be overridden when you import invoices and bills.