Browsing the chart of accounts in SamBooks

The SamBooks chart of accounts lists every account your company's bookkeeping can use — here's how it's organized and how to find the right one.

What it's for

The chart of accounts is the full list of accounts SamBooks uses to record your company's bookkeeping: whenever you post a manual journal entry, or whenever SamBooks posts one automatically from an invoice or a payment, the movement always lands on one of these accounts. The Chart of accounts page (left-hand menu, Accounting section) lets you browse the whole list — SamBooks' standard accounts plus the ones your company created — search for the one you need, and see where it lands in the financial statements.

This isn't the page where standard accounts get edited: those stay fixed by design (more on why below). Here you can look everything up, add a new account when one is missing, and disable (or re-enable) custom accounts you no longer use.

Before you start

Anyone with access to SamBooks can open and browse the chart of accounts, whatever their role. Creating a new account or editing a custom one, though, requires the Manager or Administrative role: a Viewer sees the exact same page as a manager, but gets a permission error if they try to save a change (see "If something goes wrong").

If your company is on the Italian flat-rate scheme (regime forfettario), the chart of accounts — like the whole accounting area — doesn't appear in this version of the platform: the sidebar only shows a minimal set of sections.

Step by step

1. Open the chart of accounts

From the left-hand menu, open Chart of accounts, inside the Accounting section. The page loads straight into the table of every account, sorted by code.

2. Read the table columns

Each row is one account, with six columns: Code, Name, CEE voice, Kind, Class and Source. Three of the column headers — Code, Name, CEE voice — are clickable and sort the table ascending or descending. At the bottom you'll find the account count and pagination: 10 accounts per page by default, up to 50 if you widen it from the page-size selector.

3. Search and filter

The Search box at the top matches on code or name (try "cash" or "6.10"). You can narrow further with: CEE voice (a searchable dropdown over the financial-statement voices), Kind (Asset, Liability, Equity, Cost, Revenue, Memorandum, Subtotal), Source (All accounts / Template only / Custom only) and the Liquidity toggle (see below). The active-filter count sits next to Clear filters, which resets everything in one click. If nothing matches your filters you'll see "No accounts found": try removing or changing one of them.

4. Open an account's detail

Click any row to open its detail view: code, name, CEE voice (with its description), account kind, class, the origin badge and, if the account comes from the SamBooks template, the origin template code too. At the bottom you'll find its status (Active/Disabled) and the available buttons, which change depending on the account's type (see below).

How accounts are organized: classes, groups, accounts and sub-accounts

Every code follows the C.MM.CC.SSS pattern — four number groups separated by dots, from the most general to the most specific:

• C — class (one digit): the account's broad category. In SamBooks: 1 Asset, 2 Liability, 3 Equity, 5 Memorandum accounts, 6 Costs, 7 Revenue (there's no class 4 or 8). There's also class 9, reserved for your company's custom accounts: using it for a new account guarantees it will never collide with a code from a future SamBooks chart-of-accounts release.
• MM — group (two digits, 10-99): the family of accounts inside the class, e.g. all payroll-related costs.
• CC — account (two digits, 10-99): the actual account inside the group.
• SSS — sub-account (three digits, 001-999): the finest level, the one you actually pick when posting an entry.

A practical example: 6.10.05.001 — class 6 tells you right away it's a cost; 6.10 is the group (a family of costs); 6.10.05 is the account; 6.10.05.001 is the specific sub-account, the one selectable when you post a journal entry.

When you create a custom account, the code must match this pattern exactly (four groups, first digit in 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 or 9): if the format is off, SamBooks tells you right away with a clear message.

The three origin badges: Standard, Modified, Custom

The Source column (and the account detail view) use three badges to tell you where an account comes from:

• Standard — a SamBooks chart-of-accounts account, adopted by your company as-is, or not yet adopted: either way, it's view-only.
• Modified — a template account that has been customized: a different name, CEE voice, kind or disabled state than the standard, or with a custom fiscal rule attached.
• Custom — created by your company, not present in the SamBooks template.

In the detail view, the presence of the "Origin template code" row confirms the account belongs to the SamBooks family (Standard or Modified); if it's missing, the account is 100% custom.

Why some accounts can't be edited or deleted

Standard and Modified accounts — everything that comes from the SamBooks template, whether adopted unchanged or customized — can't be edited from this page, on any field: SamBooks keeps them fixed so that the balance sheet, VAT settlements and tax filings stay consistent over time. Open one of these accounts and the detail view says so explicitly: "Template accounts are not editable. To use a different account, create a new custom account and ask Sam to migrate operations." So the way forward isn't to force a change onto the existing account, but to create a new one and move your entries onto it, with Sam's help.

The chart of accounts has no "delete" button at all, for standard or custom accounts alike: the only available action is disabling, and only for Custom accounts (from the account's detail view, "Edit custom account" button → the "Disable the account (kept in audit log)" checkbox). A disabled account stays visible in the list — for traceability, history is never erased — but it disappears from the account picker when you post a new journal entry. Disabling is reversible: if you disable an account by mistake, reopen its detail view, click Edit custom account again, clear the "Disable the account (kept in audit log)" checkbox and confirm with Save changes — the account goes back to Active and reappears in the picker.

If your company is missing some accounts

This mostly happens to companies that migrated from another accounting package: the initial import only adopts the accounts that actually had activity, not the entire SamBooks chart of accounts (roughly 508 accounts). If you're looking for a system account and can't find it — maybe because you now need it for something you didn't do before — there's currently no button that completes the chart of accounts on its own: syncing in the missing accounts is a command-line operation, handled by technical support. Contact SamBooks support and mention which account is missing (its code or description, if you know it): it will be added without touching the accounts you already have.

If instead you simply need an account SamBooks doesn't provide at all, that's not a missing template account — create it as a custom account with "New custom account".

The Liquidity badge and the cash/bank accounts filter

Sub-accounts in the 1.35.* family that are linked to a real operating bank, cash, card or PSP account show a "Liquidity" badge next to their name. Managing these accounts (IBAN, account holder, balance) doesn't happen here — it lives under Banking. Here you can only view them, and isolate them with the "Cash/bank accounts only" toggle at the end of the filter row.

From an account to the entries that move it

The chart of accounts doesn't open a list of an account's movements directly — for that you have two routes.

• From the journal: note the account's name, open Posting journal in the menu and use the "Ledger account" filter (it searches by account name): you'll see every entry that touches it, each with its debit or credit amount.
• From the financial statements: open Financial statements, click a CEE voice and then the account you're after: a window opens with the individual entries and a direct link to the journal entry. For the two summary accounts — trade receivables and trade payables — the same path opens a per-customer or per-supplier breakdown instead.

A full ledger view for any given account (every movement with a running balance) and a trial balance don't have a dedicated page yet: today you can only get them by asking Sam in chat.

Ask Sam

You can get the same information by asking Sam in the chat, with a bit more depth in the cases that stay text-only here: try "show me the ledger for account 6.10.05.001", "what's the balance of the cash account as of June 30" or "give me this year's trial balance". From an account's detail view you'll also find a "Replace via Sam" button (standard accounts) or "Ask Sam (advanced changes)" (custom accounts): it opens the chat with a message already drafted, which you can confirm or edit before sending.

If something goes wrong

• "Invalid format: use C.MM.CC.SSS (e.g. 6.10.05.999)" when creating an account: the code you entered doesn't match the four-group pattern. Check the dots are in the right place and the first digit is 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 or 9.
• "An account with this code already exists. Choose a different code.": someone — possibly a template account itself — already uses that code. Change the last group (the sub-account) and try again.
• A permission error whose text stays in Italian even in the English interface — "Operazione non consentita per il ruolo corrente…: serve un ruolo con permessi di scrittura (Gestore o Amministrativo)" — means the account you're logged in with is read-only — typically a Viewer — and you tried to create or edit an account. The "New custom account" button stays visible for that role too, but saving is always rejected: ask a Manager or an Administrative user to do it, or have your role changed.
• Can't find a cash/bank account you know is linked: if your company has a very large number of them (more than about fifty), the filter might not surface every one on a single page. Try searching for it by name instead, or check the Banking page directly.
• Can't find an account you need: try searching with different words first (Search also matches part of the code); if it's genuinely missing from the chart of accounts, see the section above on missing accounts.

FAQ

Where do I find the chart of accounts? In the left-hand menu, Accounting section → Chart of accounts.

What does an account code like 6.10.05.001 mean? Read it left to right: 6 is the class (Costs), 10 the group, 05 the account, 001 the sub-account. See "How accounts are organized" above for the full breakdown.

What's the difference between a group, an account and a sub-account? They're three increasingly specific levels of the same code: the group collects similar accounts, the account is the actual line item, the sub-account is the final level you pick when posting an entry.

What does the "Standard" badge mean? That it's a SamBooks chart-of-accounts account exactly as provided, with no company changes: it can't be edited from this page.

Why do some accounts say "Custom"? Because your company created them with "New custom account": they're not part of SamBooks' standard chart of accounts, and they're the only ones you can rename, disable and re-enable.

I disabled a custom account by mistake — can I switch it back on? Yes. Open the account, click "Edit custom account", clear the "Disable the account (kept in audit log)" checkbox and save: the account returns to Active and shows up again in the journal-entry picker. Entries posted in the meantime are unaffected.

My chart of accounts looks incomplete — how do I add the missing accounts? Not from a button: contact SamBooks support, and the list gets completed without touching the accounts you already have.

How do I see only my bank and cash accounts? Turn on the "Cash/bank accounts only" filter: it shows just the 1.35.* sub-accounts linked to an operating bank, cash, card or PSP account.

What does an account's Kind mean? Its economic nature: Asset, Liability, Equity, Cost, Revenue, Memorandum or Subtotal. It also determines which statement the account lands on.

Related guides

• Posting a journal entry — where you pick, line by line, the accounts you just looked up.
• Flat-rate vs. ordinary tax regime — if you're on the flat-rate scheme and don't see the chart of accounts in the sidebar, here's why.