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Utilities

The small generators, converters and formatters that come up constantly in business admin: reference numbers, due dates and the fiddly details that slow paperwork down.

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Overview

About utilities

This category collects the jobs too small to justify software and too frequent to keep doing by hand. Working out what date Net 30 lands on. Generating the next invoice number without breaking the sequence. Formatting a batch of references consistently. Individually they take a minute; across a year they take a week.

They also happen to be where quiet errors creep in. A duplicated invoice number is a bookkeeping problem that surfaces months later. A due date counted in working days rather than calendar days puts a payment chase a week off. These are not dramatic mistakes, which is exactly why nobody catches them at the time.

Each tool here does one thing, does it immediately, and gets out of the way. There is no project to set up and nothing to configure before you get an answer. You arrive with a specific question and leave with it answered.

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Free

Invoice Number Generator

Invoice numbering is a decision you make once and live with for years, and the wrong scheme is genuinely painful to unwind. This builds a pattern from custom prefixes, date components and zero padding, generates a batch you can copy in one click, and flags the patterns that tend to cause problems at audit.

Open Invoice Number Generator

What it does

  • Custom prefixes, suffixes and separators
  • Date-based and year-reset patterns
  • Configurable zero padding
  • Generate a batch and copy it in one go
  • Warns when a pattern can produce duplicates

4 tools

All utilities

Small tools that remove friction.

Why they help

What makes these utilities worth using

  • An answer immediately

    No setup, no project, no configuration. You arrive with a specific question and leave with it answered.

  • Sequences that stay valid

    Gap-free, unique numbering is a legal expectation in most places. These tools produce patterns that satisfy it rather than a random string that looks tidy.

  • Calendar days, counted correctly

    Net 30 means 30 calendar days from the invoice date. Getting this right is the difference between chasing on time and chasing a week late.

  • Batch output and one-click copy

    Generate a whole run at once and copy it in a single action, instead of typing a sequence by hand and mistyping one of them.

  • Warnings where patterns cause trouble

    Some numbering schemes look neat and create problems at audit. Where that is true, the tool says so rather than letting you find out later.

  • One job each, done properly

    Small tools that do one thing well beat a large tool that does ten things adequately, particularly when you only need the one.

In practice

How these tools get used

Three situations these come up in, written the way they actually happen.

  1. A freelancer starting out

    Choosing a numbering scheme once, properly

    Before sending a first invoice you set up a pattern (year, dash, padded counter), and generate the first batch. Numbers stay unique across years, sort correctly in a folder, and restart cleanly each January. Deciding this at invoice one is far easier than fixing it at invoice ninety.

  2. An office manager

    Knowing exactly when to chase

    Twelve invoices go out on different dates with different terms. Converting each to a real due date, adjusted for weekends, turns a vague sense that something is overdue into a specific list of who to contact and when.

  3. A bookkeeper

    Generating a run of references at once

    A month's worth of invoices needs reference numbers in one consistent format. You generate the whole batch, copy it in a single click, and paste it into the accounting sheet without hand-typing a sequence and mistyping one of them.

FAQ

Utilities questions

The things people most often want to know before they start.

Each answers one small question that comes up either side of a document rather than inside it: what reference to put on an invoice, what date a payment term actually lands on, how to write an amount in words, and whether a bank account number is structurally sound. None is large enough to be a product on its own, and all four are things people otherwise do in their head and occasionally get wrong.

The IBAN validator, to confirm the account number is well formed and its check digits agree. Be clear about what that does and does not tell you: it catches a transposed or mistyped digit before money moves, and it cannot tell you the account exists or belongs to the supplier you think it does. A changed bank detail should be confirmed by voice on a number you already had.

No, and none of them stores anything at all between visits. These four write nothing to your browser, which is a deliberate difference from the document generators, where saving your business details for reuse is the point. Here there is nothing worth keeping: you take the answer and put it on the document. Your own records stay the only source of truth for what you have actually issued.

Before and after them. You work out a reference and a due date here, then produce the invoice itself in Business Documents. The generators do not pull from these tools automatically, because the answers are decisions rather than calculations: which numbering pattern you have committed to, and which date convention you agreed with that client.

The contractual due date usually does not, but your follow-up schedule probably should. A reminder that lands on a Sunday is a reminder nobody reads, so the tools let you adjust for that separately.

Between them they settle the three things usually in dispute: which invoice is being discussed, when it actually fell due under the terms you agreed, and whether the money went to the right account. None of them is evidence on its own. They tell you what the answer should have been, which is what you need before making the claim.

Guides

Further reading

Articles that go deeper on the topics these tools cover.

Keep exploring

Other tools people tend to need alongside these.

Get started with utilities

Every tool here is free, needs no account, and runs in your browser. Pick one and start working.

Open Invoice Number GeneratorSee all categories