Generating accruals, deferrals and period-end adjusting entries in SamBooks

How to use the automatic generator that closes a month, quarter or financial year with the matching entries: accruals, deferrals and — if you want — asset depreciation, in a single batch.

What this is for

The Adjusting entries page (left menu, under Accounting, /contabilita/assestamenti) is the single home for the period-end cycle, with three tabs — Financial years, Adjusting entries, Closing. This guide covers the Adjusting entries tab: the batch generator that books accruals and deferrals from already-posted journal lines, plus "Individual accruals and deferrals" for manual cases. The other two tabs follow their own logic: the full year sequence, and where each tab fits, is in The yearly accounting cycle.

Accruals and deferrals answer the same need: matching a cost or revenue with the period it actually belongs to, when that differs from the year it was posted in. A deferral (prepaid expense / deferred income) pushes to the future the share of an already-posted cost or revenue that spans beyond the closing date (insurance paid in November for a full year: only two months belong to the year you are closing). An accrual brings forward, into the year you are closing, the share of a cost or revenue whose document will only arrive in the new year (December's utility bill invoiced in January). The definition SamBooks applies for the assets-side line comes from article 2424-bis of the Italian Civil Code (in short: it must carry income of the current year collectible in future years, and costs already incurred by year-end but belonging to future years — with the mirror rule on the liabilities side).

Before you start

• Generating, confirming or reverting an adjusting entry requires a role with posting rights — Manager or Administrative. A Viewer can only read the page.
• Adjusting entries does not appear in the sidebar for companies on the flat-rate scheme (RF19) nor on simplified accounting: the entry stays hidden in both cases.
• The generator only works on lines that already have an accrual period filled in. If you never filled it in, "Generate automatically" will find nothing — see step 2.

Step by step

1. Open Adjusting entries and find the right tab

From the left menu, open Accounting → Adjusting entries. At the top: Financial years, Adjusting entries (the default) and Closing. This guide stays on Adjusting entries, which stacks two sections: "Generated adjusting entries" (the batch generator, steps 3-9) and "Individual accruals and deferrals" (the earlier manual model, step 10).

2. Prerequisite: lines need an accrual period

The generator does not guess: it scans already-posted cost/revenue lines with Accrual start and Accrual end filled in, and compares them with the cut-off date from step 3. A line without an accrual period stays invisible to the generator — the most common cause of an empty preview. The field is added line by line in the journal entry editor — "Accrual period" button, then Accrual start/end; full details in Recording a journal entry. Accrual starting in an already-closed financial year? SamBooks warns you right away: "The accrual starts in a closed financial year: the portion belonging to closed years will be recognised as an extraordinary gain/loss at the next adjustment."

3. Choose the period and what to generate

"Generate automatically" button, top-right of "Generated adjusting entries". A dialog opens with:

• Period: four modes — Year-end (cut-off at the last date of the financial year, non-calendar years included), Quarter (year + quarter), Month (year + month), or Specific date (a free cut-off date, for a period that doesn't match a standard boundary).
• Year / Month / Quarter — shown only for the matching mode; Cut-off date only for "Specific date".
• What to generate: three independent toggles — "Accruals (active and passive)", "Deferrals (active and passive)", "Asset depreciation". At least one must be on, otherwise "Select at least one category." appears. For depreciation math — rates, the reduced first year — see Calculating and posting asset depreciation: here you only learn how it plugs into the batch.

Press "Preview".

4. Check the preview: nothing is written yet

The preview computes totals per category WITHOUT touching the ledger — "No entry has been created yet. Confirm to post to the journal." If a batch already exists for that cut-off, a warning appears: "An adjusting entry already exists for this period (cut-off {data}). On confirm, the existing one is reverted and regenerated with the current parameters." — this is the idempotency: you cannot stack two batches on the same cut-off, only replace it. With depreciation on, if some assets are already depreciated a count warning appears — they get skipped, not duplicated; if every asset is already covered, confirming returns an error naming them (up to five). If there's nothing to adjust in any category, the preview stays empty: go back to step 2.

One preview detail worth knowing: the five category rows (Prepaid expenses, Deferred income, Accrued income, Accrued expenses, Depreciation) aren't always everything that makes up the Overall total shown below them. In some cases the total also includes the extraordinary gain/loss from an accrual starting in an already-closed year (step 2) and the release of the deferral on capital grants linked to an asset: two real amounts with no row of their own in this preview. If the total doesn't match the sum of the five rows, that's where the difference comes from — it's a preview-only thing, not the table in step 7, where the total always reconciles.

5. Confirm: the cut-off entry plus the next-day reopening

"Confirm and generate" (becomes "Revert and regenerate" on an already-covered cut-off) writes one single adjusting entry for accruals, deferrals and any linked amounts, dated at the chosen cut-off, plus the reopening the next day: the reverse entry that carries the remaining accrual onto the new year, so a multi-year deferral "rolls" to the next cut-off, shrinking by the quota already consumed — but only if you run the generator again, not on its own. Depreciation is a different thing: a separate entry per asset (Debit depreciation cost / Credit accumulated fund), dated to the end of the financial year, not to the chosen cut-off — run "Month: March" with depreciation on, and the quota is still the yearly one, dated to year-end, not to end of March. SamBooks confirms with "Adjusting entries generated." or "Adjusting entries regenerated."

6. How SamBooks classifies deferrals versus accruals

SamBooks decides on its own, line by line, whether an accrual produces a deferral or an accrual entry, by comparing the financial year the line was posted in against the one you are closing:

• line posted in the year you are closing, accrual period extending past the cut-off → deferral: cost → prepaid expense, revenue → deferred income, future share deferred.
• line posted in a later financial year (document arrived late), accrual period inside the year you are closing → accrual: cost → accrued expense, revenue → accrued income, already-known share booked now.

In both cases the quota is pro-rated on days (multi-year deferrals included). Only estimated accruals stay manual: a cost or revenue belonging to the year you are closing whose document hasn't arrived at all — no posted line to start from. For those, "Individual accruals and deferrals" (step 10) isn't enough: that engine requires an accrual period spanning into the following year, while an estimated accrual stays entirely inside the year you're closing. Record it with a plain manual journal entry, with the amount you estimate.

7. Read the "Generated adjusting entries" table

Every generated batch is a block: a header with the period, the cut-off date, the "Depreciation included" badge if present, and — if reverted — the "Reverted" badge (dimmed, excluded by default: turn on "Show reverted"). The header also carries "Entry" and "Reopening" links. Below it, one row per category — Prepaid expenses, Deferred income, Accrued income, Accrued expenses, Depreciation — plus the Overall total, which here always matches the sum of the five rows (unlike the step 4 preview). Clicking a row opens the step 8 detail view, already filtered to that category.

8. The source entries behind every total

Clicking a category row opens the batch detail: links to the adjusting entry and the reopening, a category filter, and a table grouped by category — a subtotal per group, then one row per source entry with Category, P&L account, Adjustment account, Accrual period, Days (fut./tot.), Line amount, Adjusted quota, Source. The Source column links to the originating journal entry (or the asset): the fastest way to see why a figure entered the batch.

9. Reverting an adjusting entry — one at a time or in bulk

"Revert" on a batch header asks for confirmation: "The adjusting entry, the reopening and any depreciation for period {periodo} will be reverted. This is reversible." It's a soft delete: the entry stays visible in history, the batch turns "Reverted" and disappears from the default view. For several batches at once: tick the checkboxes, then "Delete selected". Reverting a batch with depreciation also rolls back the asset's accumulated fund and total.

10. "Individual accruals and deferrals" (the earlier model)

Below "Generated adjusting entries" sits "Individual accruals and deferrals": "Accrual items entered manually via Sam or imported (binary model, kept for existing data)." It's the engine that predates the batch generator, and it serves one precise case: a cost/revenue with an accrual period spanning across the year boundary, part in the year you're posting and part in the next (insurance paid in November for a full year). Accrual period entirely inside the posting year → SamBooks rejects: "The accrual falls entirely within the current financial year: no quota to defer, no accrual/deferral needed." Multi-year accrual (beyond the following year) → rejects too, pointing to the step 3 generator.

"Add accrual/deferral" button: Type, Accrual start/end, Posting date, Total amount, Accrual/deferral account and Income statement account (cost/revenue) — SamBooks computes the current-year and next-year share, pro-rated on days, and posts the adjustment right away, deferring the next-year share. Each row opens a detail with three tabs — Details, Posting entries, AI history — and a "Reverse" button, available as long as it hasn't been reversed yet: it posts the exact opposite of the adjustment, typically at the start of the following year.

If something's wrong

• Preview always empty: no line has an accrual period in the range you're adjusting — see step 2.
• "Select at least one category.": no toggle is on under "What to generate".
• "An adjusting entry already exists for this period…": you already generated on that cut-off; confirming replaces it.
• Warning about already-depreciated assets: that year is already covered; revert the existing entry first to redo it.
• Reverted a batch by mistake: turn on "Show reverted" to find it; reverting doesn't "un-revert" — regenerate it instead.
• Can't find "Generate automatically": check the company's scheme — hidden for flat-rate (RF19) and simplified accounting.

Ask Sam

You can ask Sam to generate adjusting entries with the same result as the wizard: "generate the 2025 financial year adjusting entries, accruals and deferrals" or "only generate 2025 depreciation". Ask it explicitly to show you the preview first — that's not automatic — and it can also revert an existing batch. For a cost spanning the year boundary, describe it directly: "record a 1,200 euro prepaid expense for insurance paid in November 2025, accrual period through October 2026"; for an estimated accrual staying entirely in the year you're closing, ask it to record a manual entry with the amount you estimate.

Frequently asked questions

How do I do year-end deferrals? Adjusting entries → "Generate automatically", pick the period ("Year-end", for example), leave "Deferrals" on, Preview then Confirm and generate.

How do I record an accrued expense? If the document is already posted with the accrual period filled in, the generator finds it. If it's only an estimate and stays entirely in the year you're closing, use a manual journal entry: "Individual accruals and deferrals" only handles accruals spanning into the following year.

What's the difference between an accrual and a deferral? A deferral pushes to the future a share of an already-posted item that spans past the cut-off. An accrual brings forward, into the year you're closing, the share of a document that will only arrive later.

I generated the wrong adjusting entries, how do I undo them? "Revert" on the batch header (or multi-select with "Delete selected"): it's reversible.

Can I include depreciation in the adjusting entries? Yes, with the "Asset depreciation" toggle, but it's a separate entry per asset, dated to year-end, with no reopening.

What is the cut-off date for? It separates "quota already accrued" from "quota still in the future": everything belonging to the year up to that date stays in the year you're closing, the rest is deferred.

Related features

• The yearly accounting cycle: from documents to closing — where this step fits in the year's sequence.
• Recording a journal entry — how to fill in the accrual period on a line.
• Calculating and posting asset depreciation — quotas, the first year and the depreciation plan.
• Recording the year-end physical inventory — inventory adjustments are a separate path from this generator.
• Why can't I post: VAT period settled or financial year closed — what to do if an accrual entry falls in a locked period.