What is Tally? Features, Types, Uses, and Advantages

Tally is one of the most popular accounting software in the world and is used by more than 20 lakh businesses across 100 countries today. It helps companies record their day-to-day transactions and helps to analyze business-related data. This financial software is a product of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and is used for various financial accounting purposes. 

Tally software is provided by the company Tally Solutions Private Limited, which is an Indian technology company, where the word ‘Tally’ means to keep records. So today, let’s understand what is Tally, its definition, history, uses, and more.

Tally Definition

Tally is an ERP accounting software. It provides business solutions, GST software, and in-built features which makes it popular among enterprises around the world. 

It is very different from manual accounting where there are high chances of human error. When you are using the Tally software, you just have to input all your data and tell the software how you want the data to be processed, and the software does all the calculations for you. This data can then be backed up for future use and will be available to check at the click of a button. 

Today, Tally software is part of small, medium, and large enterprises alike. Tally ERP 9 was released in the year 2009, and it is one of the most used accounting software. Tally has recently released a new version of Tally ERP 9 software in the year 2020. This software is called Tally Prime and it offers more advanced features.

History of Tally

Tally Solutions is a Bangalore-based company that was co-founded by Mr Shyam Sunder Goenka and Mr Bharat Goenka in the year 1986. This father-son duo came up with this software to help manage the financial transactions in their own company and then given its efficiency launched it for the world. 

To understand what is tally, let’s unveil its history. The first version of Tally was called Peutronics Financial Accountant and it only offered basic accounting features. The software was updated with new versions through the years and by the year 2006, Tally Solutions had more than 1 million customers. Bharat Goenka won the Padma Shri Award in the field of Trade and Industry for all his hard work in developing this world-renowned software.

Here is a brief history of Tally software through the years:

• Tally 3.0: Founded in the year 1990 and it offered basic accounting features.
• Tally 3.12: Developed in the year 1992 and it offered similar features to the previous version.
• Tally 4: Developed in the year 1992 and it supported Microsoft DOS.
• Tally 4.5: Developed in the year 1994 and it offered enhanced performance than the previous versions.
• Tally 5.4: Developed in the year 1996 and it offered a graphic interface version.
• Tally 6.3: Developed in the year 2001. It was compatible with Windows and offered features to calculate VAT.
• Tally 7.2: Developed in the year 2005 with more enhanced features.
• Tally 8.1: Developed in the year 2006 with features for managing payroll and point of sale.
• Tally 9: Developed in the same year 2006 with features for TDS calculation, E-TDS filing, and FBT among other features.
• Tally ERP 9: Developed in the year 2009. It could help with GST calculations, had a multi-user login feature, could generate invoices, and could also be remotely accessed from various office locations.
• Tally Prime: Developed in the year 2020 with easier navigation, user experience, and multi-tasking features

Tally has changed the lives of many students, entrepreneurs, and chartered accountants as it simplifies all the complex business calculations and records invoices. The latest version of Tally Prime can even generate automatic electronic invoices among other latest features. You can learn more about Tally by taking a tally course in hindi.

Features of Tally

Here are some of the main features of Tally:

1. The software is easy to install, has simple navigation features, and can solve complex business functions.
2. You can create and maintain the records of up to 99,999 companies.
3. With the latest version of this software, you can now automate employee record management.
4. With its synchronization features, transactions and records from multiple office locations can be updated automatically.
5. Chartered Accountants can use tally for their audits.
6. It can generate instant reports for any particular month or year which is helpful for inventory management and accounting.
7. Tally can generate consolidated financial statements for an organization.
8. The software also offers online assistance to help you navigate the software and learn about its various features.
9. The software supports multiple languages hence reports made in one language can be viewed in another language with ease.
10. This can be used to manage your company’s inventories, invoices, sales, and purchase records.

Types of Tally Software

There are two different versions of the Tally software depending on the needs of your organization:

• Single-Use Tally Software

With Single-Use Tally software, you can use Tally in one operating system only. This is helpful for small organizations, especially startups, where all business operations can be easily done in one system. The best single-use tally software is Tally ERP 9 Silver. 

• Multi-User Tally Software  

With multi-user Tally software, you can use this software in multiple systems. It is mostly used by large organizations, schools, colleges, hospitals, and other institutions in the world. 

This allows you to use Tally in multiple office locations which is helpful in the case of multinational companies. The best multi-user tally software is Tally ERP 9 Gold. 

Additionally, large corporations can buy Tally servers to boost their software speed and efficiency. Multi-user Tally software is more expensive than single-use Tally software as it can be used on multiple PCs.

Uses Of Tally

Tally is like a digital accounting book where you can enter your debits or credits without manually writing them and calculating them in a physical book. You can enter your entries in the same way digitally. Here are the various uses of Tally software:

1. Ledgers

You can create ledgers in Tally for all your financial transactions.. You can also create separate ledgers for each business or client account. For example – You can start a ledger for your bank account or a ledger for how much a client owes you in Tally. 

There are two types of ledger accounts in Tally:

• Cash
• Profit and Loss Account

These ledgers are already included in the Tally ERP 9. You can create and add more ledgers according to your requirements.

2. Vouchers

Vouchers are documents that consist of all the details regarding a financial transaction. This software comes with several types of vouchers such as:

• Contra Vouchers: These are transactions that record the inflows of cash from the bank and vice versa. 
• Payment Vouchers: These vouchers record transactions that are made to a third party.
• Receipt Vouchers: These vouchers help to record the flow of cash within an organization.

Advantages of Tally

Tally has made complex calculations easy and reduced error rates. It can be customized depending on your organization’s needs to give accurate solutions. The following are some of the advantages of Tally for your business: 

1. Tally offers exceptional safety and security features. This means people will not be able to tamper with your data.
2. Tally helps you in calculating the salaries of employees of your organization by including net deductions, bonuses, and tax deductions. 
3. Tally software is used in the banking industry to calculate the interest on loans or deposits. The software makes complex calculations easier and makes banking much simpler. 
4. The software ensures that data entered across all geographical locations remains accurate and consistent. This means organizations that are spread globally, will see uniform data in the software in all countries. 
5. Tally ensures that small companies work within a budget. It helps you ensure that your company stays within the allocated budget. 
6. The software helps companies file tax returns every year ensuring it complies with the updated GST norms. 
7. Employees of an organization from anywhere in the world can access the data on this software with their unique User ID and password which makes using the software flexible. 
8. You can find all your old documents in the archive folder of Tally. It saves all your bills, vouchers, and receipts which can be easily retrieved if needed. 
9. It is cost-effective software that ensures that all financial transactions are running smoothly. 
10. With the latest version of Tally software, you can digitize your signature and bills.

Conclusion

In this blog, we have talked about what is tally, its history, and its features. Technically it has become a part of almost every business today. In 2022, the company even started working with Amazon web services on its cloud computing platform. It has made calculations easier, helps to save a lot of time, and ensures that businesses run smoothly. It has also reduced the chances of human error significantly.

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