Create and manage cash & bank accounts in SamBooks

How to create, edit, set as default and delete your bank, cash, card and PSP accounts, and how they connect to the chart of accounts.

What it's for

Cash & bank accounts are the record of every place your money moves through: bank current accounts, cash tills, POS terminals, company credit cards, PayPal, Stripe, Wise, finance companies and cheque cash. They sit at the center of three different things in SamBooks:

• the account you pick when recording a receipt or a payment from the Open Items ledger or from a journal entry;
• the account you import a bank statement into and reconcile against;
• an actual row of the chart of accounts: every cash/bank account you create generates its matching accounting subaccount automatically, so movements land in the right spot of the balance sheet without you having to think about it.

This guide covers the full lifecycle of the account itself: creating it (in every way you can), editing it, setting it as default, deleting or disabling it, and how it relates to the chart of accounts. For importing a bank statement and doing the actual bank reconciliation, see Connect and import a bank statement and Check the bank ledger: here you'll only find the manual linking step, which is an action on the account itself, not the file import.

Automatic bank connection (Open Banking) isn't live yet in SamBooks: today the only way to bring movements into the platform is to create the account and import a bank statement file.

One important distinction: this window only manages the account's record (type, IBAN, default…), not its balance. Each account's accounting balance — what's actually in the till or the bank according to the journal — is shown on the Accounting tab of the Bank page, covered in Check the bank ledger: that's where you'll find the balance card, filterable by account and period, together with any comparison against the imported statement's balance.

Before you start

• You can create, edit and delete cash & bank accounts with the Manager or Administrative role. With the Viewer role you can see the list but not change it.
• The feature is available on every plan and under every tax regime, including the flat-rate scheme.

Step by step

1. Open the "Cash & bank accounts" list

From the Finance menu, open Bank and go to the Bank transactions tab. In the toolbar you'll find the Cash & bank accounts button: it opens a scrollable list of every account already created — type, linked accounting subaccount, masked IBAN, an optional Default badge and, only on this page, whether the account is Linked to Enable Banking or Manual.

2. Click "Add account"

At the top right of the window you'll find the Add account button: it opens the New cash/bank account form.

3. Pick the type

The Account type field automatically determines where the subaccount lands in the chart of accounts:

• Bank, POS, Credit card, PayPal, Stripe, Wise, Finance company → subaccount under 1.35.05 (Banks, cards and gateways, balance-sheet item C.IV.1).
• Cash, Cheque cash → subaccount under 1.35.15 (Cash and cheques, balance-sheet item C.IV.3).
• Other → SamBooks can't classify it on its own: you need to enter, in the Accounting subaccount field, the code of an existing 1.35.* subaccount from the company's chart of accounts to link it to.

For every other type the subaccount is created for you, with a free progressive numeric code under the right prefix: you don't need to enter any code.

4. Fill in the fields

• Description (required): the name you'll recognize the account by, for example "Intesa current account" or "Store cash till".
• Bank, Account holder, IBAN, BIC/SWIFT, Short code: all optional. The IBAN is encrypted: from this point on, wherever the account shows up in a list across SamBooks, only its last 4 digits are visible.
• Default account: turn it on if you want this account pre-selected every time you record a receipt or a payment. The first account you create for the company becomes the default automatically, even if you don't flip the switch.

5. Click "Create account"

The account shows up immediately in the list, with its subaccount already linked in the chart of accounts.

Two other ways to create the same account

Besides the path above, there are two more routes that lead to the exact same result — handy if you're already working in the chart of accounts instead of Bank.

From the chart of accounts, creating a new account. On the chart-of-accounts page, the New account button opens a single form with a "This is a cash/bank account (bank/cash/card/PSP)" toggle. Leaving it off creates a regular custom accounting entry, with a code, name, balance-sheet item and nature you choose by hand; turning it on replaces the form with the same fields from step 3-4 above (type, description, IBAN, default…) and produces the exact same result as an account created from Bank: a cash/bank account plus its automatic 1.35.* subaccount.

From the chart of accounts, promoting an existing subaccount. It happens, especially after importing data from a legacy system, to already have a 1.35.* subaccount in the chart of accounts — say, a bank imported as a plain accounting entry — that isn't yet "dressed up" as a working cash/bank account: it doesn't show up as selectable when you record a receipt, and you can't import a bank statement into it. Opening that subaccount's detail shows a "Mark as cash/bank account" button: it opens the same creation form, but with the subaccount already locked in — you can't change it — and you only fill in type, description and any IBAN/account holder. The button only appears on class-1 subaccounts under 1.35.* that aren't linked to a cash/bank account yet.

In the chart of accounts, every subaccount already linked to a cash/bank account shows a "Liquidity" badge (with an explanatory tooltip: "Subaccount linked to a cash/bank account (bank/cash/PSP)").

Editing an account

In the "Cash & bank accounts" list, click the account's row — or its pencil icon, Edit — to open the Edit account form. It has the same fields as creation, except two: the type and the accounting subaccount can't be changed after creation. This is deliberate — changing them would break the consistency between movements already recorded and the account's accounting classification. If you picked the wrong type, the correct fix is to create a new account of the right type.

Updating the Description also updates the linked subaccount's name in the chart of accounts automatically, so the two always stay aligned.

Setting the default account

On the row of any account that isn't already the default, you'll find the star icon, "Set as default". Only one account per company can be default at a time: activating a new one automatically strips the Default badge from the previous one. The default account is the one SamBooks pre-selects every time you open the receipt or payment recording window — you can still change it there, for that single entry.

Manually linking an account to import a bank statement

On accounts that aren't linked yet — badge Manual instead of Linked to Enable Banking, visible only on the Bank page — you'll also find the "Link manually" icon: it creates a minimal technical link, name and IBAN both optional, that makes the account selectable as a target when you import a bank statement file. It doesn't turn on any automatic bank connection: as noted above, that stays off. The full statement-import walkthrough — accepted formats, column mapping, duplicate handling — is covered in Connect and import a bank statement.

Deleting an account

On the account's row, the "Delete" icon opens a confirmation: "Delete account?". Confirming removes the account from the list; it's no longer selectable for new entries.

Deletion is blocked if the subaccount already has journal entries: in that case SamBooks rejects the operation with a message inviting you to reverse the linked entries, or to disable the account instead of deleting it. Disabling isn't an action available in this window: it's done from the chart of accounts, by opening the subaccount's detail — it's always a custom account, since it was created for this company — and clicking "Edit custom account", where you'll find the "Disable the account (stays tracked in the audit log)" switch. An account disabled this way stays in its accounting history but stops being offered as an active option for new operations.

Ask Sam

You can ask Sam to create, edit, set as default or delete a cash/bank account with a chat message, for example: "create a cash account for the store's petty cash" or "delete the PayPal account, we don't use it anymore". These are the same operations as the form, so the same rules apply: any type other than "Other" generates its own subaccount, and a deletion is still rejected if entries already exist. The Open Banking consent flow, once it's live, will remain an exception: it requires your browser for direct authorization with the bank, so it can never be an action you ask Sam to do for you.

If something goes wrong

• *"Enter a valid 1.35. subaccount (e.g. 1.35.05.099)"**: you picked the Other type without filling in the Accounting subaccount field, or entered a code that doesn't exist in the company's chart of accounts or isn't under the 1.35.* branch. Look up the right code in the chart of accounts before trying again.
• "This account is already linked to another cash/bank account": you're trying to link — for the Other type, or by promoting a subaccount — a 1.35.* code that's already the subaccount of another live cash/bank account. Each subaccount can belong to only one cash/bank account at a time.
• "This account has journal entries: it can't be deleted. Disable it or reverse its entries first": see "Deleting an account" above — reverse the linked entries, or disable the account from the chart of accounts instead of deleting it.
• "Invalid IBAN": SamBooks checks the IBAN's format and checksum before saving it; a single mistyped digit is enough to have it rejected.
• You can't see the IBAN digits you typed anymore: that's expected, it's encrypted — both the list and the edit form only show the last 4 digits; to change it you have to type the full number again, the field always starts empty in edit mode.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to create the chart-of-accounts subaccount myself before creating the cash/bank account? No, for every type except "Other" SamBooks creates the 1.35.* subaccount for you, at the same moment you create the account.

Can I have more than one default account, one per type? No, there's only one for the whole company, regardless of type.

If I delete an account, do I lose the entries already recorded? No, but you can't delete it while it has linked entries: SamBooks blocks the operation on purpose, to avoid losing accounting history. You can disable it from the chart of accounts if you no longer want to use it for new entries.

How do I actually connect my bank, without uploading files by hand? It's not possible yet: automatic connection via Open Banking is planned but not live. The only way to bring movements in today is creating the account and importing the bank statement file.

Why doesn't my bank account, imported from the old system, show up among the cash/bank accounts? It was probably imported only as a chart-of-accounts subaccount, without becoming an actual working cash/bank account. Open its detail from the chart of accounts and use "Mark as cash/bank account" to complete it.

Can I change an account's type from Bank to Cash after creating it? No, type and accounting subaccount are fixed after creation. If you got it wrong, create a new account of the correct type.

What's the short code for? It's just an optional label to quickly recognize the account, for example "INTESA01": it has no accounting or functional effect.

What's the difference between creating an account from Bank versus from the chart of accounts? None in the result: it's the same form, with the same fields, producing the same cash/bank account with the same subaccount. Only the starting point changes.

Related guides

• Connect and import a bank statement — the next step, to bring in the real bank movements.
• Check the bank ledger — where you see the movements recorded on your cash/bank accounts.
• Record a receipt or a payment — where you pick the cash/bank account for each operation.