Invoice numbering & series

Invoice numbers look like an administrative detail, but they carry legal weight. This article explains what Latvian law actually requires, how fakts delivers it, and why fakts keeps your invoices gaplessly sequential.

What the law actually requires

A common belief is that invoice numbers must be gapless — that invoice 2025/003 must be immediately followed by 2025/004 with no gaps. That is not what the law says.

What this means in practice: if you void an invoice or delete a draft, the counter does not roll back. That is normal and lawful. In an audit, a brief note explaining the voided document is sufficient.

How fakts numbers invoices

For each active series, fakts maintains a sequential counter in the database using row-level locking. This means that even if two invoices are created at the same moment, they receive different numbers — duplicates are impossible by design. A number is assigned the moment you click Save, not before.

You define the number format in settings: a prefix (for example INV or 2025), a separator, and the number of digits. Examples: INV-2025-001 or R/2025/001.

Series and yearly resets

A series is a named number sequence — you can create as many as you need. Common setups:

• One general series for all clients.
• A separate series for project work and another for recurring services.
• One series under one company and a different one under another (if you operate under multiple legal entities).

Each series can be set to reset annually (the counter returns to 1 in January) or to count continuously. Most Latvian businesses find yearly resets more practical — numbers stay short and bookkeeping is cleaner.

When a new year begins, fakts continues from your last series or starts a fresh one depending on your settings. Check Settings → Numbering to confirm everything is as you want it before you create your first invoice of the year.