[ic] counter tag question

[Dennis Chen]

Hi all,

I've read through the docs and mailing list but guess nobody had this issue.
Is there a way to allow the [counter] tag read special characters from file?
ie.  PO-0200012 because as of current, the "-" or any other special
characters
don't work.  Having PO0200012 will definitely confuse people and I don't
want
to have PURCHASE0200012 as the PO number as it is too long.  
I have found the CounterFile.pm but don't know what to change.  

Help anyone??

Thanks!
Dennis