Compute the periodic VAT settlement in SamBooks
11 min read
How to compute, read, cancel and recompute the periodic VAT settlement in SamBooks: what counts toward the total, which period it lands in, and how to clear a reconciliation error.
What it's for
The VAT settlement is the periodic calculation (monthly or quarterly, depending on your company's VAT frequency) of your VAT debit or credit: SamBooks adds up output VAT and input VAT accrued in the period, includes any credit carried over from the previous period, and automatically posts the closing accounting entry that settles the VAT accounts against the tax authority. If the result is a debit, this calculation is the starting point for generating the payment F24; if it's a credit, the surplus carries forward to the next period.
You'll find it under Contabilità → IVA in the left menu (route /liquidazioni-iva) — not under Finanza, even though Banking, Payables/Receivables and F24 live there: if you look for "Liquidazioni IVA" in that section you won't find it, it sits deeper in the menu, under Contabilità (Accounting).
Before you start
- You need a role with write access to accounting (Gestore or Amministrativo): the Visualizzatore (viewer) role can see settlements but cannot compute or cancel them.
- If your company is on the flat-rate scheme (regime forfettario), this menu item doesn't appear at all: that scheme doesn't liquidate VAT, so there's nothing to compute here.
- Periods must be settled in order. If you skip a month or a quarter, the credit that should carry over from that period to the next one comes out as zero automatically — SamBooks doesn't flag this as an anomaly, so it's best to always settle the previous period before a new one.
Step by step
1. Open the settlements list
Go to Contabilità → IVA. You'll see a table with one row per settlement already computed: columns Period (monthly, with month/year, or quarterly with "T1"…"T4"/year), Output VAT, Input VAT, Balance and Result — a colored label reading VAT debit / VAT credit / Even, plus Voided if the settlement has been cancelled. You can sort the table by clicking the "Period" or "Balance" header; by default the most recent settlements are shown first. The list is paginated (10 rows by default, up to 50 per page).
Above the table are 4 filters: Frequency (All frequencies / Monthly / Quarter 1 / Quarter 2 / Quarter 3 / Quarter 4), Tax year, Balance (All balances / VAT debit / VAT credit / Even) and Settlement period — a date range, but note: this is the date you computed the settlement on, not the VAT period it refers to. If nothing matches your filters you'll see "No settlements for these filters", with the hint "Try changing the year or frequency. Or ask Sam to compute a period's VAT settlement."
2. Press "Compute period" and pick a year and period
At the top, press "Compute period": a dialog titled "Compute VAT settlement" opens, with two fields — Year and Period (the field's placeholder reads "Month 1-12 or quarter 1-4"). Enter the month (1-12) if your company settles monthly, or the quarter (1-4) if it settles quarterly: SamBooks already knows which from your company's VAT frequency setting, you only type the number — there's no selector that changes shape depending on the frequency. Press "Compute period" to confirm: it runs immediately, the click itself is the confirmation, there's no separate preview step.
3. Read the result
Once the calculation succeeds you land directly on the newly created settlement's page. At the top is a colored banner summarizing the result: debit (with the amount to pay via F24), credit (with the amount carried to the next period) or even (no payment, no carry-forward). Below, in the "Sections" tab, is the line-by-line detail: output VAT, input VAT, previous period credit, balance (signed), VAT to pay, credit to carry forward, and the settlement date. If the settlement is historical data loaded during onboarding (from a previous accounting system), you'll also find a note at the bottom of the tab.
What counts toward the calculation — and why an invoice can land in a period you didn't expect
SamBooks aggregates every journal entry on the VAT accounts (debit and credit) whose VAT date falls inside the chosen period — and the VAT date is not the date you clicked "post" on: it's determined automatically by the document type:
- Immediate sales invoice: the VAT date matches the document date.
- Deferred sales invoice (TD24, from a delivery note): it lands in the month you actually delivered the goods or performed the service, even if you issue it by the 15th of the following month.
- Regular purchase invoice: SamBooks looks at both when you received it and when you recorded it. If both fall within the 15th of the month following the transaction (and in the same year as the transaction), the invoice lands in that transaction month's settlement; otherwise it lands in the period you finished recording it. This never crosses a year boundary: a December invoice never "slides" into the following year.
- Self-invoices from reverse charge (intra-EU purchases, services from abroad and similar): the VAT date is always the original transaction's date, even if you generate or record the self-invoice later — you can't move it by changing when you record it, and this applies identically to both the debit and credit side of the same transaction.
This is where a different number than expected shows up most often: if a purchase invoice "seems to be missing" from a settlement, the first thing to check is when you actually received and recorded it, not the document date.
If the calculation is blocked: reconciliation against the registers
Before posting any number, SamBooks compares the VAT resulting from the journal entries with the VAT resulting from the VAT registers of the same period — two different sources that, for a correct period, should match. If they don't (for example, an issued invoice that was never posted, or a duplicate VAT entry), the calculation fails: you get an error explaining exactly how large the mismatch is — on the debit and/or credit side — and, when possible, the list of documents to check. In that case the settlement is not saved: fix the entry or the document that diverges first, then try computing again.
Cancelling and recomputing a settlement
An already-settled period can't be recomputed on top: if you try to compute the same month/quarter again, SamBooks refuses with a message telling you to cancel the existing settlement first. To do that, from the Contabilità → IVA list, find the "Cancel" icon on the settlement's row:
- if the settlement is already cancelled, the icon no longer appears;
- if it has a linked payment F24 that's already paid, the icon is disabled with the message "Payment F24 already paid: the settlement cannot be cancelled." — you need to handle that F24 first (restore or cancel it);
- otherwise, clicking it opens the "Cancel this settlement?" dialog, which tells you upfront what will happen: if there's a generated F24 that hasn't been paid yet, it tells you it will be cancelled in cascade along with the settlement; if there's no linked F24, it just tells you the closing VAT entry will be deleted.
On confirmation (the "Cancel settlement" button), what actually happens is this: the closing journal entry that settled the period's VAT accounts is deleted — not offset by a reversing entry, this is not a true reversal despite some wording in the interface saying "reversed" — the settlement record is marked as cancelled, and any unpaid linked F24 is cancelled along with it. The practical result: the period reopens, you can fix whatever you need to, then go back to "Compute period" to redo the calculation from scratch with updated data.
On the detail page, a cancelled settlement stays visible — it doesn't disappear: you'll see a "Settlement cancelled" banner with the cancellation date, and the sections remain readable as an audit trail, but no longer count for accounting purposes.
If the reason you want to cancel is that a posting is being rejected because it falls in an already-settled period, the guide Unblocking a settled VAT period or a closed fiscal year in SamBooks walks through that scenario step by step too, including the case where the block is on the fiscal year rather than the VAT period.
After the settlement: F24, registers and LIPE
On a debit settlement's detail page, at the top you'll also find a "Generate F24" button: it's a shortcut that pre-fills the year and period and immediately creates the payment F24 module — the same result you'd get by going to the F24 section → Generate → "From VAT settlement", just one click shorter. Once generated, the button turns into "Download F24". If the settlement isn't a debit, or the F24 hasn't been generated any other way, the button simply doesn't appear — there's nothing to pay.
The same bar also has "Generate LIPE XML" and "Download registers": these are covered by the companion guide Downloading VAT registers and the LIPE communication in SamBooks, which explains them in detail — what they contain, how they're numbered, and what to do if LIPE generation fails.
The "Chain" tab on the detail page shows the linked documents: the generated F24 (if any, with a direct link) and the closing accounting entry (with a link to the journal entry). If neither exists yet, you'll see an explicit message instead of an empty table with no explanation. The third tab, "AI history", lists any actions Sam has taken on this settlement.
Who can compute and cancel
Every user with access to the company can see settlements, in any role. Computing a period and cancelling a settlement, on the other hand, require a role with write access to accounting: Gestore or Amministrativo. The Visualizzatore role gets an error if it tries; the Logistica role has no write access to this area (it only handles warehouse, delivery notes, orders and shipments).
Ask Sam
You can ask Sam directly, in chat: "compute the VAT settlement for March 2026" or "what's the VAT balance for the last quarter?". Sam uses exactly the same calculation engine as the "Compute period" button — same aggregation, same closing entry — and can also cancel a settlement on your explicit request, following the same rules (F24 already paid → not cancellable). Both paths, form and chat, are equivalent: neither one can do something the other can't.
If something goes wrong
- "Period already settled": you tried to compute a month/quarter that already has a live settlement. Cancel the existing one (see above) before recomputing, or — if you just need to fix an entry — follow the guide on blocked periods.
- Reconciliation doesn't match: the calculation is refused and shows you the mismatch between journal entries and registers, and sometimes the list of documents to check. It's not a glitch: the settlement is telling you that something upstream — an invoice, a manual entry — doesn't match what the registers should show.
- The previous period's credit is zero and shouldn't be: check that you actually computed — and didn't cancel — the settlement for the immediately preceding period. If that period wasn't settled, the carry-forward is zero by design, not a SamBooks error.
- The "Cancel" button is disabled: there's a linked payment F24 already marked as paid. You need to deal with that first (restore or cancel it) before you can cancel the settlement.
- I can't find "VAT settlements" under Finanza: that's expected, it lives under Contabilità → IVA, not under Finanza.
Frequently asked questions
Can I settle the same month twice? No: as long as the existing settlement isn't cancelled, SamBooks refuses a new calculation for the same period, with a message that says so explicitly.
What happens if I cancel a settlement by mistake? The period reopens and you can simply recompute it from "Compute period": you don't lose data, the new settlement re-aggregates the same entries (plus any corrections made in the meantime).
Why did a purchase invoice I recorded this month end up in last month's settlement? Because the VAT date isn't the date you clicked "post" on: for purchases it depends on when you received and recorded the document, and under certain conditions it stays tied to the month of the original transaction (see the section above).
Does a quarterly settlement automatically cover all three months? Yes: if your company settles quarterly, a single calculation aggregates all VAT movements for the three months of the quarter — you don't need to run three separate calculations.
Can I settle a period before settling the one before it? Technically yes, nothing blocks you from doing it. But the credit carried over from the skipped period will come out as zero: it's always best to settle in order, from the oldest period to the most recent.
What do I need to do if my company is on the flat-rate scheme? Nothing: the VAT settlements page isn't relevant to you and won't appear in the menu, because the flat-rate scheme doesn't periodically liquidate VAT.
Why is a debit settlement's balance shown in red and a credit one in green? It's just a visual convention in SamBooks so you can tell at a glance whether you owe money (red) or have a credit that carries to the next period (green); it doesn't change the amount or the calculation in any way.