Every document in the system receives a number which is unique in a company code within a fiscal year. You use a number range to define how the document number is assigned.

Numbers can be assigned in different ways:

• Externally The accounting clerk enters the number of the original document during document entry, or the number is transferred automatically from a pre-invoicing system. A prerequisite is that the document numbers are unique.
• Internally The system automatically assigns a sequence number. The accounting clerk manually records this number on the original document. This method is used if the original documents do not have a unique document number. This is the case, for example, with vendor invoices.

You define which number assignment you want when setting up the number ranges. For every number range, you must specify:

• A two-character code (see 1 in the following diagram)
• A validity date (a year value) up until which the number range is valid (see 2 in the following diagram)
• An interval from which the numbers are chosen (see 3 in the following diagram)
• Whether the number range is used in internal or external number assignment (see 4 in the following diagram)

The intervals for number ranges must not overlap.

In the Financial Accounting (FI) application component, you can also define alphanumeric number ranges. In this case, however, the document numbers can only be assigned externally.

Since documents may be kept in the system for an indefinite amount of time, you need to define intervals that are large enough to handle this factor. The following system features ensure that the number intervals are large enough:

• You can define number ranges for each company code. Thus, each company code can use the same number interval.
• Document numbers can be up to ten characters long.
• Number ranges can be defined for each calendar year.