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A journal is the register a document is booked and numbered in. Its category says which documents it takes (sales_invoice, sales_credit, purchases_invoice, purchases_credit, incoming_sales, incoming_purchases); a few historical incoming journals read as incoming, read-only.

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Numbering

Every document of the journal gets a number drawn from a counter, rendered according to numbering_format: {code}<sep><period><sep>{seq:N}, where <sep> is - or /, and N (2–8) is the width of the counter — invoice 119 renders as 0119 with {seq:4}. Default: {code}-{year4}-{seq:5}. <period> combines one or more of these tokens, computed from the issue date: The fy* tokens only differ from {year4}/{year2} when sequence_scope is fiscal-year and the fiscal year does not start in January; otherwise they render the same value. sequence_scope (never, monthly, calendar-year, fiscal-year) says when the counter resets. The code prefixes that number: it is unique within the company, case-insensitive (409 duplicate_journal_code). code, category and sequence_scope are fixed at creation (422 field_not_editable afterwards): changing them would break the continuity of the numbers already handed out. For another code or category, create a journal.

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Default journal

Each category has a default journal, the one POST /documents books a document in when it names none. It must stay usable:
  • is_default: true promotes a journal and demotes the previous default of the same category;
  • a journal cannot be created or updated into being both default and inactive at once, and the last default of a category cannot be demoted with is_default: false (422 default_journal_required) — promote another journal instead. The rule looks at the final state: promoting an inactive journal passes if the same request reactivates it.

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On documents

documents.journal_id is the journal the document is booked in, null when it has none (many received documents). A document imported as purchase/sale is booked in the default incoming journal at creation.