Exporting your company data as CSV or ZIP in SamBooks

How to download a snapshot of your company's accounting data — customers, suppliers, chart of accounts, daybook and general ledger — as CSV files or a single ZIP, so you can move to another accounting system or keep an offline copy.

What this is for

The Export page hands you your company's accounting data as CSV files: Customers, Suppliers, Chart of accounts, Daybook, General ledger. Opening the page shows you the list of the five entities; the files themselves are built the moment you click "Download", not before. It serves two purposes: leaving SamBooks with your data intact for another system (no lock-in, no strings attached), or keeping an offline copy you can open in a spreadsheet.

It's not the only page that downloads files in SamBooks, and the three don't overlap:

• Export (this guide) — raw accounting data, meant to be re-imported elsewhere.
• Archive — documents already issued (invoices, F24, tax returns) as PDF/XML, grouped by section.
• Import — the opposite direction: data coming in from a previous accounting system.

Before you start

• Role: the Settings sidebar entry is only clickable for the Manager (Gestore); Administrative and Viewer roles see it but it's disabled (no action on click). If you need an export and you're not the Manager, ask whoever is.
• Nothing to prepare beforehand: the export is generated on the fly, no prior configuration needed.
• It still works if your company's subscription has expired or is locked: export is one of the management/exit routes that stay reachable no matter what, alongside Team and Subscription, so you can always get your data back.

How to do it, step by step

1. Open Settings → Export

From the sidebar, open Settings: you land on the Company settings card grid. Click the "Export" card — "Export your data from SamBooks as CSV or ZIP." — and you reach the "Data export" page, subtitle "Export your data from SamBooks as CSV or ZIP — customers, suppliers, chart of accounts, daybook and journal."

2. Generate the full export in one click

At the top you'll find the "Generate full export (ZIP)" button. One click downloads a sambooks-export-<company id>.zip file containing five CSVs, one per entity: clienti.csv, fornitori.csv, piano_dei_conti.csv, prima_nota.csv, libro_giornale.csv. No intermediate screen, no queue to wait in and no expiring link: the file is assembled as it downloads, with a confirmation toast at the end ("ZIP export generated.").

On a large set of books this can take a few seconds. While a download is running, every button on the page is disabled: you export one thing at a time, so a second file can't start on top of the first.

3. Or download a single entity

Below, the "Or download by type" section lists the five entities (Customers, Suppliers, Chart of accounts, Daybook, General ledger), each with its own "Download" button — handy if you only need one piece, say the chart of accounts for your accountant. A single file carries the same name it would have inside the ZIP (piano_dei_conti.csv, clienti.csv…), so the two routes are interchangeable.

The list shows the entity name but not how many rows the file will contain. If you want to know before downloading, ask Sam ("how many customers do I have to export?") — it has the row count for all five entities. Otherwise you'll find out by opening the CSV.

If the list fails to load, the page says so — "Could not load the export list. Try again." — and it's almost always a passing network hiccup: reload the page.

4. What each CSV contains

The files are built to be re-imported into an Italian accounting system, not just read on screen: they stay in the Italian file convention regardless of your interface language — semicolon separator, comma as decimal mark and no thousands separator (1.234,56 becomes 1234,56), ISO dates (YYYY-MM-DD), and a leading UTF-8 BOM that Excel recognizes automatically. Boolean fields come out as the Italian sì/no, and the column headers are in Italian too, since the file targets Italian accounting software. Columns per entity:

• Customers and Suppliers (same columns): Denominazione (company name), Partita IVA (VAT number), Codice fiscale (tax code), Paese (country), Indirizzo (address), CAP (ZIP code), Comune (city), Provincia (province), PEC (certified email), Email, Telefono (phone), Codice destinatario SDI (SDI recipient code), Regime fiscale (tax regime), IBAN, Giorni pagamento (payment terms in days), Attivo (active), Note (notes). Records you deleted don't appear in the file.
• Chart of accounts: Codice (code), Descrizione (description), Classe (class), Natura (nature), Voce CEE (balance-sheet item), Livello (level), Attivo (active), Disabilitato (disabled), Note. Every account in your chart comes out, including the ones you switched off — the "Disabilitato" column is what tells them apart.
• Daybook: Anno (year), Numero (number), Data registrazione (posting date), Data IVA (VAT date), Causale (entry type), Descrizione causale (entry type description), Origine (origin), Totale dare (total debit), Totale avere (total credit), Note. One row per entry, with its header totals.
• General ledger: Data registrazione (posting date), Anno, Numero, Riga (line), Codice conto (account code), Conto (account), Dare (debit), Avere (credit), Descrizione (description), Causale (entry type). Here you get one row per posting line inside each entry: it's the account-by-account breakdown of the daybook, and it's the file another system needs to rebuild your journal.

Mind the IBAN column in Customers and Suppliers: the file writes it in clear text (decrypted), not masked — that's on purpose, so you can re-import it elsewhere, but it also means you should treat the file as sensitive: keep it where you keep banking data, don't attach it where it isn't needed and don't leave it in a shared folder.

5. What's NOT in it

The export covers exactly those five entities and nothing else. You won't find invoices (sales or purchase), delivery notes, orders, fixed assets, inventory, F24 forms or document attachments. Documents you've already issued are downloaded from the Archive, as PDF and XML. The split follows a clear logic: here are the data to feed into another accounting system, there are the documents to keep as they are.

A snapshot, not a continuous feed

Every download is a snapshot at the moment you click: SamBooks doesn't keep an "always up to date" export, nor does it archive one for you anywhere. If you post new invoices or entries after downloading the file, what you have stays frozen at that point in time — for fresh data, reopen the page and download again.

Ask Sam

Sam knows this page and, if you ask what you can export, answers with the list of the five entities and how many rows each one holds — but it won't hand you the file in chat: for this fixed export (the five CSVs meant for switching accounting systems), the download always lives on the Settings → Export page, the same one for everyone.

There's a different, complementary path for tables built on the spot: you can ask Sam things like "export my customer list to Excel" or "a PDF with this month's overdue invoices," and it generates an Excel or PDF file from your request, with a "Download" button that appears in the chat. This is the one SamBooks capability deliberately meant to stay chat-only, by product design: the shape and format are whatever your request calls for, not the fixed schema of the portability CSVs described here — two different tools for two different needs.

Frequently asked questions

How do I export my customers from SamBooks? From Settings → Export, click "Download" on the "Customers" row — or use the full export (ZIP) if you also need the other entities.

I want to take all my data out, how do I do it? Click "Generate full export (ZIP)": you download customers, suppliers, chart of accounts, daybook and general ledger in one go.

How do I download the daybook as CSV? Same page, "Daybook" row → "Download". The file already has comma decimals and ISO dates, ready for another accounting system. If you need the account-by-account breakdown, download "General ledger" as well.

Can I export the chart of accounts? Yes, it's one of the five entities on the page, with the same columns you see in Chart of accounts.

Are my invoices included in the export? No: the export covers the five accounting entities only. Invoices, delivery notes and other issued documents are downloaded from the Archive as PDF and XML.

Does export still work if I haven't renewed my subscription? Yes: export stays reachable even when the company is locked for an expired subscription — it's built to be one of the exit routes.

What format are the exported files in? CSV with semicolons, comma decimals, ISO dates and a UTF-8 BOM (it opens correctly in Excel). The ZIP bundles the five CSVs into a single file.

How long does it take — do I get a link by email? No link and no queue: the file downloads straight from your browser when you click. Large archives can take a few seconds, during which the other buttons on the page stay disabled.

Can I ask Sam to generate this export for me? Not the five fixed CSVs on this page: Sam tells you what they contain and how many rows each has, then points you to where to download them. It can instead build you an Excel or PDF on the spot from your own request — a different file, with different content.

Related features

• Document archive — invoices, F24 and tax returns already issued, not raw data.
• Importing data from a previous accounting system — the opposite direction, coming in.
• Chart of accounts — one of the exportable entities.
• Daybook — another of the exportable entities.