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Working with journals

A journal assigns the numbering to your invoices and credit notes. At least one company is attached to every journal. That way you can use multiple companies in one Robaws environment and still keep the invoicing separate.

Example: your environment contains two companies (Robaws BV and Eforge), each with its own invoice numbering. You then create two journals, one per company.

Creating a journal

Go to settings > general > master data > financial > journals and click + add. These are the fields you set:

Setting	Explanation
Name	Give your journal a recognisable name, so that when you invoice you immediately know which journal to choose.
Type	Sales or purchase. Determines from which module the journal is called up: sales for sales invoices, purchase for incoming invoices.
Invoices / Credit note	What you use this journal for. If you want a different numbering for credit notes, create a separate journal for that.
Companies	The companies for which this journal may be used.
Journal code	The code that your accounting software uses.
UBL to e-mail address	The e-mail address of the accounting software to which the invoice is sent.
Automatic booking	If this is switched on, the invoice immediately receives a definitive invoice number. If it is switched off, the invoice first receives the status pro forma and the number only follows when it is booked.
Prefix	The prefix of the number, for example Fyy to start with the year.
Suffix	The suffix of the number.
#Numbers	The number of digits in the sequence number.

In the prefix and the suffix, the tokens yy and yyyy are replaced by the year of the invoice date, not of the system date. If you type a fixed year (for example F2026), it is not moved forward automatically.

If something goes wrong with the automatic numbering, the cause is almost always a setting on the journal. You can read more about that in How do I manage my invoice numbers?

If documents are already attached to a journal, you can no longer delete that journal and no longer detach the company.

How Robaws chooses the journal

You use journals in the modules invoices and incoming invoices. Which journal an invoice receives depends on the way it is created. Robaws looks in this order:

the combination of journal and company that you chose yourself for a separate invoice or credit note from the overview — an explicit choice always takes precedence
the company of the document you invoice from, for an invoice from an existing document
the journal that is set on the subscription, for an invoice from a subscription
the journal and the company of the Robawsbox, for an incoming invoice via the Robawsbox

Below you can read what that means in practice for each method.

1. A separate invoice or credit note from the overview

If you create an invoice or credit note via the plus sign at the top of the overview, you see all possible combinations of journal and company (the company is shown in brackets). You choose the correct combination yourself. Robaws applies the numbering of that journal and fills in the company automatically as a fixed field that you can no longer change.

2. An invoice from an existing document

If you invoice from an existing document, for example a quotation, the company is already fixed. Robaws then looks for the journals that are attached to that company:

if one journal is linked, Robaws uses it automatically
if there are several, you choose from that selection

3. An invoice from a subscription

If the invoice is created on the next execution date of a subscription, Robaws uses the journal that is set on that subscription.

If no valid journal is attached to the subscription, you receive a notification about it. In that case, fill in a journal on the subscription.

4. An incoming invoice via the Robawsbox

If you send an incoming invoice to the Robawsbox, the journal and the company of that Robawsbox determine the numbering of the incoming invoice.

Updated on: 08/09/2026

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