Recording a manual double-entry journal entry in SamBooks
12 min read
How to post an accounting entry by hand in debit and credit: date, reason code, choosing the accounts, balancing, saving, and where to find the entry afterwards.
What this is for
In SamBooks most accounting entries are created for you: when you issue an invoice, register a supplier invoice, collect a due date or match a bank transaction, the double-entry posting is generated by the system and you already find it under Journal, with a reference to the document it came from.
A manual entry is for everything else: a transfer between two bank accounts, a cash deposit at the bank, a petty cash withdrawal, a correction on the wrong account, opening balances, any entry with no underlying document managed by the platform. In the list these are recognisable because the Source column shows "Manual entry". Do not use a manual entry to rebuild an invoice, a payment received, a payment made against a due date, a tax payment or the daily till takings: those have their own page and generate the correct posting themselves, linked to due dates, protocol numbering and VAT registers.
Before you start
- You need a role with write permissions: Manager or Administrative. A Viewer can read entries but the save is rejected; the same applies to the Logistics role.
- The financial year containing the posting date must be open: if it is locked or closed the entry is rejected (the fix is under «If something goes wrong»).
- Accounting is not available under the Italian flat-rate scheme: the Posting journal menu item does not appear.
Step by step
1. Open the journal and press «New entry»
From the left menu open Posting journal — the page is titled Journal — and press "New entry" at the top right: the "New journal entry" dialog opens — "Free double-entry posting. Total debit must equal total credit." — already prepared with two empty lines and today's date. If you repeat this entry every month, press "Start from template": reason code and lines are filled in for you.
2. Set the posting date and, if needed, the VAT date
"Posting date" is the only mandatory date and is already set to today. It determines which financial year the entry belongs to and its position in the journal ledger.
"VAT date" drives the VAT settlement, as the hint under the field says: "Sets the VAT settlement period." Until you touch it, it follows the posting date, which is what you want for the vast majority of manual entries: change it only when the entry moves VAT and the tax belongs to a different period.
You can also reference the supporting document with "Document number" (for example FT-2026/42) and "Document date": both are optional, but if you fill in the document date the VAT date cannot be earlier than it.
3. Choose the reason code
"Reason code" is mandatory: open the dropdown and pick one, searching in "Search reason codes…". The codes supplied by SamBooks carry the "Standard" badge — among them GIRO (bank transfer), VERS (bank deposit), PREL (cash withdrawal), RETT (accounting correction), AMM (depreciation), APE (opening balances). If the one you need is missing, at the bottom of the list you find "+ New reason code", which asks for "Code", "Name" and "Default description" and is usable immediately.
The "Reason description" field — also mandatory — is filled in automatically with the code's default description. You can rewrite it: it is the text you will read in the list and in the journal ledger, so make it recognisable ("Transfer from bank account to petty cash").
4. Fill in the debit and credit lines
Under "Accounting lines" you build the entry itself. Each line has:
- "Account" — mandatory (how to search it is explained below);
- "Debit" and "Credit" — only one of the two is filled in, with a positive amount. If you type in Debit, the Credit box on the same line clears itself: in double-entry a line sits on one side only;
- "Line description" — optional;
- "Balance" — read-only, showing the account balance after this line as at the posting date: "Positive = debit balance, negative = credit balance". It is the quickest way to notice you have put an amount on the wrong side.
Two lines are the minimum. "Add line" adds as many as you need (an entry can have several accounts on the debit side and several on the credit side) and "Remove line" deletes the one too many.
How to decide which side an account goes on, without theory: the account that receives (the bank where the money arrives, the cost you incur, the asset you buy) goes to Debit; the account that gives up (the cash the money leaves, the revenue you earn, the liability you take on) goes to Credit. You deposit €500 of cash at the bank: bank in Debit 500.00, petty cash in Credit 500.00.
5. Check the totals bar
Below the lines sits the bar with "Total debit" and "Total credit", and on the right the verdict: "Add lines to record the entry" until you enter amounts, "Entry is balanced" in green when the two totals match, "Entry is NOT balanced: difference €250.00" in red with the exact amount missing. Until the entry balances the save buttons stay disabled and there is no way to force them.
If the red message persists, look for the stated difference among the amounts. There are three usual causes: a mistyped amount, an amount on the wrong side (in which case the difference is twice that amount) and a forgotten line. Fix it and the bar turns green on its own.
6. Post the entry
Press "Post": the dialog closes and the confirmation "Entry created (no. 128/2026)." appears. If you have more entries to key in, use "Post and new", which saves this one and immediately reopens a clean dialog. If you will need the entry again, before closing press "Save as template" — enabled only when the entry balances — and provide "Name", "Description" and the "Include the current amounts in the template" flag.
The account: how to search it, and what to do if it does not exist
The "Account" field on each line is a search dropdown over the whole chart of accounts. There are three ways to reach the right account: type in "Search by code or name", which works both with the code (1.35) and with a word from the name ("cash", "fuel", "bank"); use the quick filters at the top — "All", "Assets", "Liabilities", "Costs", "Revenue"; or scroll the list, which loads more entries as you go. Each option shows the code, the name and the CEE balance-sheet item.
Disabled accounts do not appear: if an account you used is no longer listed, it has been disabled in the chart of accounts, where it remains visible for history but is no longer selectable.
If the account does not exist it must be created first: the dropdown answers "No account found." and does not let you invent a code on the fly. Open Chart of accounts, press "New custom account" and create it with code, name, CEE item and nature; once saved it is selectable in the journal. The standard SamBooks accounts, on the other hand, cannot be edited: if you need an account under a different name, create a custom one.
The accrual period of a line (optional)
Each line carries a "Competence period" button, useful when the cost or revenue does not belong entirely to the period you are posting it in: an annual fee paid in March, an insurance policy straddling year end. Choose "By calendar" and enter "Competence start" and "Competence end", which always go together. This period is what the accruals and deferrals generator reads to produce the period-end entries: if you leave it empty, the line belongs entirely to the period you recorded it in.
If the line touches a depreciable asset
With a depreciable fixed-asset account the "Movement on a fixed asset" notice appears and saving stays blocked until you press "Link asset" (or "Record disposal", if the amount is on the credit side and you are therefore writing the asset off) or "It's a reclassification", which marks the line as a simple transfer between accounts. Without one of the two you get "Line 2: movement on a fixed asset — link or create an asset (or mark as reclassification)."
Where to find the entry after saving
The entry appears immediately under Journal, at the top of the list (sorted by posting date, most recent first), with the columns Number · Recorded · VAT date · Reason · Source · Amount · Status. The number runs sequentially per company and per year and is not yours to choose; if you later move the entry to another year it is renumbered. If you cannot find it, remember that the "Status" filter shows "Active" entries only by default.
Click the row to read it again: "Journal entry detail" opens with the recap of Recorded on, VAT date, Reason and Document plus the entry line by line (# · Account · Debit · Credit · Description · Accrual period · Counterparty · Asset), closed by the explicit check "Double-entry balanced: Σ Debit = Σ Credit = …".
From that moment the entry is fully part of the accounts: it feeds Financial statements, rebuilt in real time from the journal, and the journal ledger, whose PDF is downloaded from the "Journal ledger" card on the Tax returns page. Two views an accountant expects on screen have no dedicated page today: the trial balance and the general ledger (account card) of a single account are only available by asking Sam in chat. From Financial statements you can still click an item and drill down to the account's entries.
If you got the entry wrong
The remedies sit on the entry's row and apply to manual entries only: "Edit entry" (the pencil icon), which reopens the same entry with the same number while the period is still open, plus "Delete entry" and "Duplicate". When the period is no longer editable — VAT already settled or financial year closed — the pencil is replaced by "Correct (void and reissue)": be clear about what it actually does, because it voids the existing entry and posts a brand-new corrected one with a new number, and does not write an opposite-sign entry offsetting the first. The original is marked "Voided" and stays readable with the "Status" filter set to voided entries. An entry generated by a document offers "Open source" instead: you correct the document and the entry updates itself.
Ask Sam
You can post the same entry from the chat, with the same result: the request goes through the same accounting engine as the dialog, so the rules on balancing, mandatory reason code and locked periods are identical. For example: «post a transfer dated 12 March: €1,500 from petty cash to the bank account», «show me the trial balance for 2026», «open the general ledger of the cash account for this year».
Entries proposed by Sam are shown to you before they are saved and stay recognisable in the list. In chat too, for invoices, payments received or made and tax payments, ask for the real operation rather than a manual journal entry.
If something goes wrong
"Entry is NOT balanced: difference …" — Debit and credit do not match and saving is disabled: look for the difference among the amounts, as explained in step 5.
"Line 2: select an account." — This almost always comes from a line that was added and then left empty: since the totals balance anyway, "Post" stays enabled and the error only appears when you press it. Remove the empty line and save again.
The other format checks are self-explanatory once you read them: "At least 2 lines are required.", "Line 1: enter only debit or only credit, with a positive amount." (two amounts on the same line, or an amount of zero), "Enter the reason code and description.", "The VAT date (…) cannot precede the document date (…)".
"Month 2/2026 has already been settled: a VAT date … cannot be posted in a closed period. Use the first open period (…) as the VAT date, or reopen that period's settlement and settle it again." — This is the most frequent error in accounting and it concerns entries that move the VAT accounts: adding another VAT transaction to a settlement already closed would change the numbers of a calculation already made. The simplest route is to move the VAT date to the first still-open period, which the message gives you in brackets: the posting date stays as it was. The alternative, when the transaction genuinely belongs to the closed period, is to reopen that settlement from the VAT settlements page, post the entry and settle again — and it is the only route on a sales invoice, because output VAT is due in the period of the transaction.
"Financial year 2025 is locked: no new entry allowed…" — This is reversible: Adjusting entries page, "Financial years" tab, "Unlock" on the year's row. If the message says "Financial year 2025 is closed" instead, unlocking is not enough: the year has to be reopened from the Closing tab of the same page. In both cases, if the transaction can sit in the current year, recording it there is the quick way out.
The save is rejected because of permissions — You are signed in as a Viewer or Logistics user: ask the company Manager to change your role or to post the entry.
Frequently asked questions
How do I record a manual journal entry? Posting journal → "New entry": date, reason code and at least two lines (one debit, one credit), then "Post" once "Entry is balanced" appears.
The Post button is greyed out and I cannot save: why? Because the entry does not balance, or you have not entered any amounts yet. It also stays disabled when a line touches a fixed-asset account and you have not linked an asset.
What is the difference between posting date, VAT date and document date? The posting date determines the financial year; the VAT date determines which VAT settlement the transaction falls into and follows the posting date by default; the document date is the date of the supporting document (and the VAT date cannot be earlier than it).
The account I need is not in the list. Either it is disabled or it does not exist. Look for it in the Chart of accounts: a disabled custom account can be re-enabled from its own card; if it is not there at all, press "New custom account" and create it.