Tally Basic

What is tally?

Tally is popularly known as accounting software for small and medium businesses. It does all the functions of accounting that a particularly midsized business has. This is the view of most of the persons who know about Tally.

But Tally does much more than that.

Tally is not just accounting software. After the release of ERP version of Tally, the capability and functioning of Tally is much more widened and extended to a great extent.

For example you know that you can maintain Employees information in Tally?

Right from his/her name to everything about duties, work, profile, groups and so on. This is could be a great feature if a business has a number of employees working in the business.

This was just one example and there are hundreds of examples we can give you about Tally like the one above.

So exactly what is Tally?

Now along with the introduction of GST (Goods and Services Tax) in India, Tally will be used by more people than before.

The reason for this is for most of the general public, Tally is a go to software for accounting and that is because of the simplicity of the Tally in itself.

Why we were asking this question, “What is Tally?” You want to know whether it is accounting software and whether you can successfully do your work in Tally.

For your ease, I have broken down the whole explanation into different parts.

What is Tally?

Well, Tally is a complete Enterprise Resource planning system with an excellent grip in accounting features.

Although it has many more core features that a business requires but its hold in accounting is truly commendable. Therefore Tally is known more for accounting rather than any other of its features.

If I have to mention a single software for a business need even if the business is just starting out, Tally is the one which I would recommend.

The reason for this recommendation is because Tally does all the things that a business at a time of starting up requires.

And, not just business, but you can use Tally for your personal accounting also.

For example, let’s say, you are a salaried person and have investments in shares, mutual funds and some other real estate investments.

Ø  You can easily pass entries for your monthly salaries. – Receipt Entry

Ø  Easily pass the entries for Stock Market and Mutual Fund Investments (along with capital gains) – Stock Market Entries

Ø  You can also pass entries for investments in Real Estate. – Normal Payment Entry

And the best thing is that you do not have to prepare Balance Sheet or Profit and Loss Account or any of the reports because they are automatically prepared while you are passing the entries.

Now let’s say for an example, if you are starting up a business of a general store, what would you require?

Ø  Accounting

Ø  Billing

Ø  Sales and profit analysis

Ø  Banking

Ø  Inventory

Ø  Taxation (GST, VAT, TDS, TCS)

I have brainstormed the needs of a newly opened general store which are all covered by Tally.

There are even more functions than this like Audit, Payroll, Manufacturing and so on which if needed can be used.

This was just an example of a general store and almost any business which requires software for its functioning; Tally can be a best fit.

I will now take you to a mesmerizing journey through the core features of Tally and will also explain some of the core features of Tally.

You can learn about the features and uses or you can simply go and start learning Tally for free since now, you know the basic meaning of Tally.

Learn How to Use Tally:

Core Features of Tally

I’ve discussed some of the very core features or you can say some of the important functionality of Tally here. The features are listed without giving any specific rank to them.

I am sure you will like the detailed listing of some of the amazing features of Tally.

This is like an introductory guide for a first time reader if you have not heard about Tally before or just heard a little bit about Tally.

Accounting in Tally

Of course, accounting is the main function of Tally and that is what it is known for.

The first word that comes in the mind of a person when hearing about Tally is accounting.

Accounting is a basic function of Tally and most people do not ever use any other functions other than accounting in Tally. At the most they will use Inventory management and some of the Taxation features.

Accounts book

Because many people do not exactly know how to use those features and in many cases they do not even require them.

If we particularly talk about accounting, Tally has segmented it further in 6 different functions. They are:

Ø  Contra (Only for cash and bank related entries)

Ø  Payment (For payment entries)

Ø  Receipt (For receipt entries)

Ø  Journal (For entries which doesn’t include cash or bank and for closing entries)

Ø  Sales (For sales billing)

Ø  Purchases (For purchase billing)

Ø  Credit Note and Debit Notes (For Sales Return, Purchase Return and Discount Entries)

There are many more functions related to accounting like Manufacturing Journal , Reverse Journal,  Delivery Notes, Receipt Notes. Memos and so on which helps in performing accounting entries in an easy way.

Let’s go to billing!

Billing in Tally      

                                 

Billing is an inevitable part of any business and it’s care is duly taken by Tally.

Actually billing is included in Accounting feature discussed above but it has somewhat a separate function rather than accounting.

The best thing in Tally is that when you create a billing entry you do not have to create again an accounting entry for that bill.

This reduces redundancy in entering a big amount of data.

So if you are having a shop and you do billing from Tally, you or your accountant do not have to again perform accounting for the same bills as it already done by you.

I’ve discussed the above technique in detail in another article.