The yearly accounting cycle in SamBooks: from documents to closing

The correct order of a financial year's accounting stages, what's automatic and what needs your action, and why skipping one step locks the next.

What this is for

This guide is a map, not a manual: it fixes the sequence of a financial year's accounting stages — from documents to closing and reopening the new year — and for each one it links to the vertical guide that explains it step by step, with the real fields, buttons and messages. If you're looking for the "how" of a single stage, open the linked guide: here you'll only find the right order and the logic behind the chained locks, so you understand why SamBooks sometimes stops you and what to unlock to move forward.

Before you start

• Fixed-cadence stages (VAT registers, settlements) depend on the company's VAT periodicity — monthly or quarterly — set in the fiscal profile.
• Generating adjusting entries and closing the year requires a role with posting rights — Manager or Administrative.
• Companies on the flat-rate scheme (RF19) stay out of most of this sequence: no VAT settlement, no Adjusting entries, no Financial statements, no Filings — only the fiscal calendar remains. Companies on simplified accounting only lose the Adjusting entries and Financial statements stages (hidden from the menu): VAT settlement and Filings stay regularly visible.

The year's sequence, stage by stage

1. All year round: from documents to the journal

Every issued or received invoice, receipt, collection or payment generates — almost always automatically — its journal entry: it's the quiet engine feeding everything that follows. What SamBooks posts on its own and what stays manual is explained in From invoices to the journal: automatic entries. For entries that stay manual (transfers, payroll, adjustments), the reference guide is Recording a journal entry — it's also where you fill in the accrual period on a line, the data stage 3 will use to generate accruals and deferrals: if you never fill it in, that stage will find nothing to adjust.

2. Monthly or quarterly: VAT registers and settlement

On a cadence tied to the company's VAT periodicity, you compute the period's settlement — Calculating the VAT settlement — and download the stamped sales, purchases and receipts registers — Downloading VAT registers and the LIPE return. A computed settlement locks the period it covers: from that point no new entry can touch a VAT account with a VAT date in that month or quarter, nor can an entry that feeds into an already-computed settlement be deleted. This is the first link in the chain of locks (stage 7): if you still need to post something in an already-settled period, the way out is reopening the settlement, not forcing the entry.

3. Periodic: accrual adjustments

At the end of a month, quarter or financial year — whenever needed, not necessarily every time — you generate the entries that bring costs and revenues onto the right accrual period: accruals, deferrals and, if you include them in the same batch, asset depreciation. The full path, wizard included, is in Generating accruals, deferrals and period-end adjusting entries. The generator only works on lines with an accrual period already filled in (stage 1): this is where the sequence breaks most often, because it looks like it "doesn't work" when in fact the upstream data is missing.

Depreciation also has its own path, asset by asset or in bulk from the Assets list, with the calculation rules (rates, reduced first year) explained in Calculating and posting asset depreciation. Inventory doesn't go through here: it's a separate path, explained in Recording the year-end physical inventory — don't expect the adjusting-entries generator to offer it.

4. Checkpoint: the balance sheet check

Before closing, the Financial statements page tells you whether assets, liabilities, equity and profit/loss balance — an explicit badge at the top of the page. It's also where you read the income statement and balance sheet for the year: the guide is Reading the CEE financial statements. An account with no CEE line assigned is the most common cause of an apparent imbalance at this stage. An entry itself can never be unbalanced: the engine rejects it before that.

5. Yearly: close the financial year

From the Closing tab of the same Adjusting entries page, the "Pre-flight check" block reminds you of two checks — every period's VAT settlement present, and the balance sheet balancing — with direct links to both pages. The real check isn't only visual: the closing engine actually enforces it, and blocks closing if settlements are missing (12 if monthly, 3 if quarterly — the fourth flows into the yearly VAT balance) or if the balance sheet doesn't balance. On confirmation, SamBooks writes three entries in sequence — transferring income-statement accounts, computing and transferring profit or loss, transferring balance-sheet accounts — and the year turns closed: from that moment no new entry can be posted into it (stage 7). The operation is idempotent: running it again on an already-closed year doesn't duplicate anything.

6. Reopening the new year

From the closing history, the button on the closing's row generates the opening entry for the following year on the first day of the new financial year — the day after the closed one ends, not necessarily 1 January for a non-calendar year — recreating the opening balances of balance-sheet accounts (income-statement accounts start from zero). If you realise you still need to post something in the year you just closed, the closing itself is a tracked, reversible action: ask Sam to revert it before reopening the next one, so you don't leave a gap in the sequence.

7. The logic behind the chained locks

Three independent guards, each triggered by an event in the sequence above:

• a computed VAT settlement (stage 2) → blocks new entries touching a VAT account with a VAT date in that period;
• a financial year manually locked from the Financial years tab → blocks every new entry dated in that year, reversible with one click ("Unlock");
• a financial year closed for accounting purposes (stage 5) → blocks every new entry dated in that year, reversible only by reopening/reversing the closing (with two system exceptions: the closing's own entries, and the recognition of deferred tax assets/liabilities, which by design must be able to fall within the already-closed year).

None of the three guards has a manual shortcut: no dialog offers a "force it anyway". The only way out is always reopening what was closed (the settlement, the year) or posting in the right period. The message you see when trying to post or delete in a locked period, with the three real cases and how to get out of each, is in Why can't I post: VAT period settled or financial year closed.

8. Running alongside, all year: chart of accounts and assets

Two elements have no cadence of their own but run through the whole cycle: the chart of accounts, from which every entry draws its account (and on which the stage 4 balance sheet check also depends), and the asset register, which feeds stage 3's depreciation.

9. What's left for tax filings

Once the year is closed, what remains are the Filings: SamBooks calculates and prepares them as ready files (IRES/IRAP tax with the REDDITI SC and IRAP XML, the annual VAT return, the withholding tax certification, Intrastat, plus draft reconciliation reports), but it never sends any of them to an authority — that step always stays with your accountant or an authorised intermediary. Some obligations, like Italy's Form 770, are only a calendar reminder: SamBooks doesn't prepare them. What the platform actually prepares and what stays with the accountant, section by section, is explained in Where SamBooks stops and the accountant takes over. To know WHEN each filing is due during the year, not just what it consists of, the guide is the fiscal calendar: it gathers VAT, direct-tax, social-security and local-tax deadlines in one agenda, with the amount already computed where SamBooks can.

Period-end operational checklist

In order, when closing a month/quarter and, separately, when closing the year:

• Every month/quarter: check that lines spanning periods have the accrual filled in (stage 1) → settle VAT and download registers (stage 2).
• Before year-end closing: generate adjusting entries (stage 3) → check the balance sheet balances (stage 4) → record the physical inventory if you carry stock (stage 3, separate path) → verify every settlement for the year exists.
• Closing: close the year from the Closing tab (stage 5) → check profit/loss in the closing history.
• Opening the new year: reopen from the closing history (stage 6) → resume posting.

Ask Sam

You can ask Sam about almost every stage of this sequence without opening the matching page: "settle June's VAT", "generate the 2025 financial year adjusting entries", "does the 2025 balance sheet balance?", "close the 2025 financial year", "what deadlines do I have in the next 30 days?". For adjusting entries and closing, ask it explicitly to show you the preview before confirming: that's not automatic. The trial balance exists only by asking Sam, with no dedicated screen; a single account's entries, on the other hand, are also visible by clicking the matching line on the Financial statements page (stage 4).

Frequently asked questions

What do I need to do at year-end in accounting? In order: accrual adjustments (accruals, deferrals, depreciation), checking the balance sheet balances, closing the year, reopening the new one. See the checklist above.

In what order are closing operations done? Adjusting entries → every period's VAT settlement present → balance sheet balancing → closing → reopening. The first two stages can happen throughout the year, not only in December.

Adjusting entries first, or VAT settlement first? They're two different things on different cadences: settlement is monthly or quarterly and concerns VAT, adjusting entries concern accrual accounting and are typically done at year-end (though you can also generate them for a single month or quarter). There's no mandatory order between them, but settlement locks the VAT period: if you already know you'll need to fix something in a given month, consider doing it before settling that month.

Which steps block later postings? Three: a VAT settlement computed on a period, a financial year manually locked, a financial year closed for accounting purposes. Full detail in the locked-period guide.

What does SamBooks do automatically, and what's left to me? Automatic: posting every document (invoices, receipts, collections). Left to you: filling in the accrual period on lines that need it, running adjusting entries when needed, settling VAT, closing the year — the in-page wizards always show a preview before writing; asked through Sam, you can still have it show you the preview before confirming.

When are VAT registers and the general journal printed? VAT registers follow the settlement's cadence (monthly or quarterly); the general journal is yearly, or over a range of your choice, and is downloaded from the Filings page.

Where do I start with accounting for a new company? From the chart of accounts (check it covers what you need), then post documents as they arrive: the rest of the sequence — adjusting entries, settlements, closing — falls into place on its own as the first deadlines come up.

Related features

• Generating accruals, deferrals and period-end adjusting entries — stage 3's generator, step by step.
• Why can't I post: VAT period settled or financial year closed — stage 7's three locks and how to get out of each.
• Reading the CEE financial statements — stage 4's balance check.
• Calculating the VAT settlement — stage 2.
• Fiscal calendar — when each filing is due during the year.