diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index e83fcafc2..d930f6fe8 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 Type: Package
 Package: datawizard
 Title: Easy Data Wrangling and Statistical Transformations
-Version: 0.9.0.4
+Version: 0.9.0.5
 Authors@R: c(
     person("Indrajeet", "Patil", , "patilindrajeet.science@gmail.com", role = "aut",
            comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0003-1995-6531", Twitter = "@patilindrajeets")),
diff --git a/R/to_numeric.R b/R/to_numeric.R
index 80fb7db27..e948d7cc1 100644
--- a/R/to_numeric.R
+++ b/R/to_numeric.R
@@ -226,6 +226,13 @@ to_numeric.factor <- function(x,
     }
     names(out) <- levels(x)
   } else if (preserve_levels) {
+    if (is.unsorted(levels(x))) {
+      x_inverse <- rep(NA_real_, length(x))
+      for (i in 1:nlevels(x)) {
+        x_inverse[x == levels(x)[i]] <- as.numeric(levels(x)[nlevels(x) - i + 1])
+      }
+      x <- factor(x_inverse)
+    }
     out <- .set_back_labels(as.numeric(as.character(x)), x)
   } else {
     out <- .set_back_labels(as.numeric(x), x)
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-data_to_numeric.R b/tests/testthat/test-data_to_numeric.R
index df43f401f..3e0a9d095 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-data_to_numeric.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-data_to_numeric.R
@@ -44,7 +44,6 @@ test_that("convert factor to numeric", {
   expect_snapshot(to_numeric(f))
 })
 
-
 test_that("convert factor to numeric", {
   expect_identical(to_numeric(c("abc", "xyz")), c(1, 2))
   expect_identical(to_numeric(c("123", "789")), c(123, 789))
@@ -52,7 +51,6 @@ test_that("convert factor to numeric", {
   expect_identical(to_numeric(c("1L", "2e-3", "ABC")), c(1, 2, 3))
 })
 
-
 test_that("convert factor to numeric, dummy factors", {
   expect_identical(
     to_numeric(c("abc", "xyz"), dummy_factors = TRUE),
@@ -66,7 +64,6 @@ test_that("convert factor to numeric, dummy factors", {
   )
 })
 
-
 test_that("convert factor to numeric, append", {
   data(efc)
   expect_identical(
@@ -94,13 +91,11 @@ test_that("convert factor to numeric, append", {
   )
 })
 
-
 test_that("convert factor to numeric, all numeric", {
   data(mtcars)
   expect_identical(to_numeric(mtcars), mtcars)
 })
 
-
 test_that("convert factor to numeric, dummy factors, with NA", {
   x1 <- factor(rep(c("a", "b"), 3))
   x2 <- factor(c("a", NA_character_, "a", "b", "a", "b"))
@@ -153,6 +148,20 @@ test_that("convert factor to numeric, dummy factors, with NA", {
   expect_identical(nrow(to_numeric(x7, dummy_factors = TRUE)), length(x7))
 })
 
+test_that("to_numeric, inverse factor levels", {
+  f <- c(0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0)
+  x1 <- factor(f, levels = c(0, 1))
+  x2 <- factor(f, levels = c(1, 0))
+  out <- to_numeric(x1, dummy_factors = FALSE, preserve_levels = FALSE)
+  expect_identical(out, c(1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 1))
+  out <- to_numeric(x2, dummy_factors = FALSE, preserve_levels = FALSE)
+  expect_identical(out, c(2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2))
+  out <- to_numeric(x1, dummy_factors = FALSE, preserve_levels = TRUE)
+  expect_identical(out, c(0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0))
+  out <- to_numeric(x2, dummy_factors = FALSE, preserve_levels = TRUE)
+  expect_identical(out, c(1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1))
+})
+
 # select helpers ------------------------------
 test_that("to_numeric regex", {
   expect_identical(