Defining financial years (including non-calendar ones) in SamBooks
10 min read
How to configure your company's financial year: when you need to, how to add, edit, lock or delete a financial year, and what decides the financial year of an entry.
What this is for
By default every company in SamBooks is on a calendar year: the financial year runs from 1 January to 31 December and there is nothing to define. The "Financial years" tab exists for the two cases where that is not enough: a company with a non-calendar financial year (for example 1 July - 30 June), or the first financial year of a newly incorporated company, which can run longer or shorter than twelve months. As long as you add no financial year, SamBooks keeps using the calendar year for every entry: this page is not a mandatory onboarding step.
Once you define at least one financial year, that definition becomes the source of truth for any entry whose date falls inside it; years you leave undefined still default to the calendar year, with nothing to declare.
Before you start
- You need a role with write permissions on accounting: Manager or Administrative. A Viewer can open the tab and read the table, the buttons are not hidden, but pressing one gets a refusal: "Operazione non consentita per il ruolo corrente: serve un ruolo con permessi di scrittura (Gestore o Amministrativo)." ("Not allowed for your current role: you need a role with write permissions.") The same goes for the Logistics role, which has no write permissions on accounting.
- The page does not appear in the sidebar for companies on the Italian flat-rate scheme or on simplified accounting: in both cases the whole Adjusting entries area stays hidden, not just this tab.
Step by step
1. Open the "Financial years" tab
Go to Adjusting entries in the left menu (under Accounting) and select the "Financial years" tab — it is the first of the three tabs, before the "Adjusting entries" tab itself and "Closing". If your company is on the calendar year and you have never added anything, you see the message "Calendar-year company" — "No custom financial year: the company uses the calendar year (1 January - 31 December). Add a financial year below only if non-calendar." That is not an error or a step to complete: it is the normal state for most companies.
2. Add a financial year
In the "Add financial year" box, fill in:
- "Period (start – end)" — mandatory, a single picker for start and end together. Open it and you get the calendar with three presets beside it, "Calendar year {year}" (the current year and the two before it); if your case is none of these, pick the range you need straight from the calendar.
- "Year (label)" — the number that identifies the financial year everywhere else in SamBooks (financial statements, journal ledger, journal numbering). Leave it blank and SamBooks derives it from the start date's year.
- "Label" — an optional free-text field, useful for a year straddling two calendar years (for example "2025/2026").
Press "Add": the toast confirms "Financial year defined." and the row appears in the table above, with the columns Period · Year · Label · Status · Actions; if the period does not match the calendar year, the "Non-calendar" badge appears next to the dates.
3. If something is off, the message tells you right away
SamBooks rejects five things, each with its own message (shown as an error toast, always in Italian regardless of the interface language, because it is the validation engine that generates it — not a translated frontend string):
- a period overlapping a financial year that is already defined: "Il periodo si sovrappone all'esercizio '{label}' ({start date} - {end date}). Gli esercizi non possono sovrapporsi." ("The period overlaps the financial year '{label}' (…). Financial years cannot overlap.");
- a year label already used by another financial year of the same company: "Esiste gia' un esercizio con etichetta anno {year}. Usa un'etichetta diversa." ("A financial year with year label {year} already exists. Use a different label.");
- a period that is too long, over roughly 16 months: "Durata esercizio eccessiva (oltre ~16 mesi): verifica le date (…)." ("Financial year duration excessive (over ~16 months): check the dates (…).") — the cap exists to catch a date typo, not a product limit: a first financial year of 14 months at incorporation, for instance, is still allowed;
- an end date that is not later than the start date: "data_fine deve essere successiva a data_inizio (…)." ("The end date must be later than the start date.") — a financial year one day long is not allowed;
- a year label outside the allowed range: "Anno esercizio {year} fuori range (2000-2999)." ("Financial year {year} out of range (2000-2999).")
4. Edit an existing financial year
Press "Edit" on the row you need: the box below turns into "Edit financial year", pre-filled with the current values. You can change the period, year and label under the same rules as step 2 (no overlap, unique label); press "Save changes" to confirm (toast "Financial year updated.") or "Cancel" to leave without saving. One warning about the label: clearing the field does not erase it — the financial year keeps the label it had. To change it, type a new one. Changing the dates of a financial year already used in the journal does not touch entries already posted: they keep the year they had at posting time, and the new period only applies going forward, to future entries.
5. Lock or unlock a financial year
On the row there is a single button that switches between the two actions: "Lock" when the financial year is Open, "Unlock" when it is Locked (the same state is also the badge in the "Status" column). Locking a financial year closes it to new postings: manual journal entries and entries generated by documents are rejected with the locked-financial-year message (in Italian, like the other validation messages), and the toast confirming the lock is "Financial year locked." It is meant to freeze an old year you no longer want touched by mistake; unlocking it ("Financial year unlocked.") returns the year to normal posting. This lock is manual and reversible with one click: it is not the statutory year-end closing — see below.
6. Delete a financial year
Press "Delete" on the row: the action happens immediately, with no confirmation dialog — there is no "are you sure?" step before the toast "Financial year deleted." Deleting a financial year frees its year label and removes the period definition, but does not touch entries already posted within that range: they keep the year they had. From that point on, dates that used to fall in that period fall back to the calendar year for any future entry — they never end up "with no financial year," because the system always has a calendar-year fallback for any date no defined financial year covers. If you hit the button by mistake, the deletion is not final: it stays in the action log and Sam can undo it — you will find how in "Ask Sam" below.
What decides the financial year of an entry
For a manual journal entry, you do not choose the financial year from a menu: it is decided by the Posting date you enter in the header, checked against the financial years you have defined (SamBooks looks for the one whose period contains it). If no defined financial year contains it — because you never created one, or because the date falls in a year you have not covered — SamBooks uses the calendar year of the date itself: there is never an error for "financial year not defined." Invoices and other documents that generate their own entry follow the same mechanism, using their own reference date.
Can you have two financial years both "Open" at once? Yes, and it is the normal situation during a transition: for example the year just closed for statutory purposes but not yet locked, and the new year already open for its first entries. Nothing forces only one financial year to be open at a time.
If you imported your data from a previous system
If that is your case, this table is not empty even on day one: the import rebuilds the financial years of the source system and marks as "Locked" the ones that were closed there. That is not an error, it is deliberate: years already closed arrive protected. They are ordinary rows — you can unlock, edit or delete them.
It is also why "Locked" should be read as protection against slips, not as an absolute guarantee: the import writes into the very years it has just marked as locked (it creates the financial year and fills it in the same operation, to stay faithful to what was filed), and year-end closing entries are by definition exempt from the lock on the year they are closing.
"Locked" is not "Closed"
These are two different protections, and this tab only manages the first:
- Locked — the one in this guide: a manual lock, reversible in one click with "Unlock".
- Closed — the statutory year-end closing (the "Closing" tab on the same page): it posts the closing entries and needs a genuine reopening to undo, not a simple unlock. Covered in Closing the fiscal year.
If an entry is rejected with a message about a settled VAT period or a locked/closed financial year, the guide explaining every message and how to get past it is Unblock a settled VAT period or a closed fiscal year.
Ask Sam
You can list, create, edit, lock/unlock and delete a financial year by asking Sam in chat too, with the same result as the buttons on this page — for example: "define the financial year from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026", "lock the 2023 financial year". Every action, whether from the button or from chat, stays in Sam's action log. There is one practical limit worth knowing: the quick "undo the last thing" request only searches the current conversation, and an action done from a button does not belong to any conversation — to undo it, ask Sam for the list of recent actions and point out which one to undo.
If something goes wrong
- "The period overlaps the financial year…" — pick a range that does not touch the dates of a financial year already defined; the message tells you which one.
- "A financial year with year label … already exists" — change the year label: two financial years of the same company cannot share it.
- "Financial year duration excessive…" — check that you have not swapped or mistyped one of the two dates: the ~16-month cap exists precisely to catch this.
- I deleted a financial year by mistake — ask Sam for the list of recent actions and have that deletion undone; alternatively recreate it by hand with the same period and year label. Either way, entries already posted were not touched by the deletion, so they stay consistent.
- I cannot find the "Financial years" tab — the company is probably on the flat-rate scheme or on simplified accounting: in both cases the whole Adjusting entries page stays hidden.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to define a financial year if my company is on the calendar year? No. With no rows in this table, SamBooks already uses the calendar year for every entry: the table only matters for non-calendar cases or a first financial year at incorporation.
How do I set up a financial year straddling two calendar years, say 1 July - 30 June? Add a financial year with that exact period: the year label can be left blank (SamBooks derives it from the start year) or set by hand.
Can my first financial year run longer than twelve months, say 14 months? Yes, up to roughly 16 months: past that SamBooks blocks the entry, assuming a date typo.
What is the difference between a "Locked" and a "Closed" financial year? "Locked" is a manual lock, reversible with one click from this tab. "Closed" is the statutory year-end closing, with its own entries, and needs a genuine reopening to undo.
What happens if I delete a financial year already used for entries? Entries already posted keep their year: they are not touched. Only the mapping for future dates changes, reverting to the calendar year.
Why do I see financial years I never created? Because the company came to SamBooks through the import from a previous system: the import recreates the financial years of the old system and locks the ones that were closed there.
What decides the financial year of a journal entry? Its Posting date, checked against the financial years you have defined; if none contains it, the calendar year of the date itself is used.