Understanding Tally ERP 9
This first series of Tally.ERP 9 introduces several new capabilities. These are supported with seasoned and high quality sales & support partnerships, a revamped education model and improved development tools.
We have taken great pains to retain the essential look and feel as well and the user experience of the previous versions of Tally (6.3, 7.2, 8.1 & 9). Yet Tally.ERP 9 is a culmination of years of research & development – and with a development team of about 200 people.
Tally.ERP 9, Series A, is geared to meet three objectives:
One is saving you time that you can invest elsewhere, including in growing your business (there is a direct correlation between the time top management invests in strategy and business growth). This is achieved via remote access capabilities and the integrated support centre to enable many time saving processes like remote audit & compliance and anytime, anywhere access to your live business data.
The second is to enable timely & affordable access to experienced professionals like Chartered Accountants (who wish to offer such services). Since these professionals can now access your data remotely, from anywhere in the world, as well as address your queries via the integrated support centre, both the cost for such services and the time taken to resolve business problems will come down.
Finally, new features in Series A, notably in taxation for industry & professionals deliver technology support for more of your business processes.
Principles of Functionality & Key Characteristics
Functionality is - what you need the software to provide. We at Tally have never looked at providing functionality with this simplistic approach. The 'how' and 'why' are of overriding importance - and this is how we deliver features with high usability.
Following are some of the principles that drive the design of Tally.ERP 9:
Exceptions are the norm:
Pause and consider your organisation. You have laid down defined processes and procedures - so why do so many things land up on your table? Generally, within a defined framework, there will often be some need for a deviation. Software programs are great at supporting rigid, well defined processes - and break down (or become complex) when managing these deviations. Principle: design to manage exceptions - defined processes will automatically be supported.
Solutions bring problems:
Especially with IT solutions! Some of your business problems are managed by a software solution and how many software problems do you now have to manage? Database administration, performance tuning, service packs, drivers, software conflicts, IT professionals - the list is endless. Principle: solving a business need should not add new problems - these must be solved as well.
Knowledge is not known:
A lot of knowledge is contextual - when the situation arises we know how to respond. Therefore, no matter how much of analysis is done, it is hardly possible to comprehend the full range of the simplest of business process. In a purchase process one may follow the order, receipt and payment for one item and just a payment for another (say a consumable). Months can go by in needs analysis and yet things will be missed out. Principle: Do not make an assumption that any system setup will not undergo change.
Change is constant:
An old phrase by now, the accelerated rate of change throws up additional challenges. You place an order for 'A' and receive 'B'; order 'x' pieces and receive 'y'. Tax structures and percentages change at random, people leave organisations without notice. Principle: design to support extreme variations.
Good is 'bad':
What's essential for someone's business can be a hindrance to you - and every business, even in the same business space, has subtle differences in what data is captured, what reports are needed and what kind of control is needed. Principle: build in common functionality and build these well, and deliver capabilities that permit extremely easy extendibility and customisability.
Blocks: Masters, Transactions, Link Masters
How do we achieve our design principles? Let's start by looking at the two building blocks used in software (this parallels life):
• Masters: Masters are what we get when we ask 'with whom?' With whom do we do business? Our customers and suppliers. 'With what?' - As in what do we transact with - services & inventory. 'Using what?' – give us taxes, units of measure, currency, batches. All these become 'masters'.
• Transactions: What do we do with masters? We transact – sales, purchases, receipts, payments - these are the 'transactions'; records of the business activities we perform.
When transactions are recorded, they create links - as in making a payment for purchase #72. The purchase reference #72 links these two documents, so we can get to know the payment status for that document, and know for which documents we have made payment. These links are called 'link masters'.
Neither masters nor transactions are truly in the hands of the software product - in the sense that these are defined by business practices. What must be captured, what is mandatory and that business transactions need to be recorded are not subject to 'design' ('how' these are done, is another matter!) What is unique is in the way these interactions are recorded, managed and reported upon.
The 'magic' of Tally is in the Link Masters - here, data of which transaction is linked to which document is maintained. The transactions themselves do not carry this information - effectively each document is an 'island' in itself, making it easy to alter, delete or insert at will - without the need to check if other transactions it refers to, exist at any time. This design permits all the flexibility required, supports incremental implementation and permits transactions to be recorded in any order (pay for purchase #72 first, then enter purchase #72).
While generating reports and totals (any totals) the above approach requires immense computing power to 'stitch' transactions together. We have developed proprietary, extremely high performance data storage & retrieval mechanisms to deliver these at very usable speeds. This architecture also allows you to mark transactions as 'optional', perform scenarios, synchronise data with branches, potentially recover from system errors, correct any errors in any transaction - anytime, report on ‘group’ companies and so many capabilities unique to Tally.ERP 9.
Editions Available
Tally.ERP 9 is presently available in two editions: Silver & Gold. (With Series B, Diamond & Platinum editions will also be available.)
Silver is for single user, while Gold is for unlimited users on a Local Area Network (LAN).
What other differences exist between editions? None - all capabilities and features will be available in every edition. The only reason to choose between editions is the number of systems from which Tally.ERP 9 can be accessed.
A 'user' in this context is actually a computer system. We do not complicate your decision with 'concurrent user', 'named user' and so on.
Therefore Tally.ERP 9 Silver can be activated (as in licensed) on one computer and used from that same computer. Tally.ERP 9 can be activated on one computer and can be accessed from any or all computers on that network.
Maintaining our philosophy - Power of Simplicity ® - you only need to take a call on which of the above options suits your needs.
If you decide to buy a Silver edition, you can migrate to Gold anytime. And with a Gold, as users increase, there is no need to come back to us for additional user licensing and avoid the commercial, purchase & administrative aspects of these changes.
Silver Edition - Single User
Where a single computer with Tally.ERP 9 is adequate for your operations, the Silver edition is what you need. A ‘user’ in this context is actually a computer system.
This edition comes with all the features & capabilities including Tally.NET and services like Remote Access.
With Silver you can manage as many companies (business entities) and personal books of accounts as you need.
You can also create as many users as you need, and provide each with the appropriate level of security. Your only restriction is that these users will all need to access Tally.ERP 9 from the system on which it is activated (licensed).
Since Silver supports Remote Access as well, you can authorise access to your Chartered Accountant, who with his Auditors’ Edition of Tally.ERP 9, can remotely provide audit, compliance and advisory services.
Similarly your Tally Service Partner can, via Remote Access, answer your queries and provide support.
As a Silver user, you can create one Tally.NET identity, which you can use to login to your own system from home or while on the move. Other users of Tally.ERP 9 can also grant access to you by authorizing this Tally.NET identity.
Gold Edition - Unlimited Multi User
Where more than one computer needs to have access to Tally.ERP 9, a Gold edition is what you need. Any number of users can simultaneously have read and write access. Note, that there can be some degradation of performance with a large number of users and we have found that the Gold edition is usable with a maximum of ten users. (Series B will deliver the Diamond & Platinum editions with support for hundreds & thousands of users).
Like with Silver you can manage as many companies (business entities) and personal books of accounts as you need. You may also create as many users as you need, and provide each with the appropriate level of security.
With Remote Access, you can authorise access to your Chartered Accountants, who with their Tally.ERP 9 - Auditors' Edition , can remotely provide audit, compliance and advisory services.
Similarly your Tally Service Partners can, via Remote Access, answers your queries and provide support.
As a Gold user, you can create ten Tally.NET identities, with which your mobile users can login to your system from home or while on the move. Other users of Tally.ERP 9 can also grant access to you by authorising these Tally.NET identities.
It is easy to migrate to Gold from Silver - contact your Tally Partner. Your license will get updated to Gold and you can now access Tally.ERP 9 from multiple systems without the need to make any other change!
Tally.ERP 9 - Auditors' Edition
Available exclusively for practicing Chartered Accountants, this edition comes will all the advantages of the Gold edition and with several extras!
These extra features are not available to Silver & Gold users:
• Computer aided audit
• Automatic scan of every ledger & voucher. These get flagged as 'potentially incorrect' with an indication of what that error could be. Send your clients these exception reports & get their clarifications
• Scrutinise records as per type of audit or compliance you are undertaking (focused audit)
• Filter out transactions you want to physically audit (for random audit)
• Generate annexure for Section 44AB; Form 3CD Annexure Clause 16, Clause 17(h), Clause 21, Clause 24(a & b), Annexure II & Clause 27
• View & verify tax liability via an all-in-one dashboard
With Remote Access these too become possible:
• Overcome the shortage of article clerks by utilising existing resources better
• Provide instant assistance & training to your article clerks
• Monitor the quality of their work
• Save on travel time and costs
• Help clients file various tax returns by verifying documents quickly
Special Tally.NET features are also available:
• Example your client has given access permission to you for audit and other purposes. You wish to assign this company to an article clerk who has been assigned a separate Tally.NET identity. Now your client need not give additional permissions to your article clerk – you can make this assignment yourself – making it easy to manage different articles as well as manage hires and exits easily
• If you actually visit the clients location and log in with your identity - all Auditors' Edition features will be automatically available at this location as well - meaning that Remote Access is not always needed
• You can login to your system or a clients system from an educational version of Tally.ERP 9 (from anywhere) or even from a regular Silver or Gold edition - you will get access to all Auditors' Edition features
Upgrading from prior versions of Tally.ERP 9, Tally 9, Tally 8.1, and earlier versions
Migrating to Tally.ERP 9 from any prior version of Tally is simple - these tools are either built into the product itself or available as migration tools that are installed along with the product.
Typically, there will be no need to make any changes to the data post migration - and the transition time could be just minutes - a few hours at most.
Getting a bit more specific, Tally.ERP 9 will migrate all data from Tally 7.2 onwards, without any assistance. If you have an older version (6.3, 5.4 and so on) you will need to bring your data to 7.2 and then migrate (our Sales & Support partners will be able to help you). In any case these tools are available at no extra cost.
In a few cases you might have customised or extended Tally – this would have been done with one or more TDL's, most likely built by one of our partners. Tally.ERP 9 comes with a TDL conversion tool that will attempt to convert such TDL's. Note, the word 'attempt' – since both the product and the TDL language evolve, there is a small possibility that the conversion may not succeed. In such cases you would need to contact the author of the customisation and make the necessary changes to the TDL. We therefore recommend that where customisations exist, there be a simple pilot undertaken to assess impact.
Account Management is now a major feature available in Tally.ERP 9. As part of the 'Control Centre', you have a powerful way of managing your deployments. Included is serial number management.
Migrating from other products
When moving to Tally.ERP 9 from other software (legacy) products you have two choices:
1. Only relevant masters (Ledgers, Items and so on) are posted
2. Masters and transactions are posted
The first option is the simplest - you 'cut over' to Tally.ERP 9 by ensuring that all opening balances and open dues (bill numbers, due dates & amounts) are available; here you continue to keep your previous software only to review old transactions.
The second option ranges from simple to very complex depending on how current transactions are stored and managed – yet you may choose to go with this option for several reasons and this is fully supported..
In both cases, what is required is that data be extracted from the legacy system and be made available in a specific XML format, which is then imported by Tally.ERP 9. These formats are available from within our product itself: all that is required is that you create a master or a transaction (in Tally.ERP 9) with a sample of the data you will provide and export these. The exported XML is in the same XML format that is required for import!
As before, it is best to plan this as a structured exercise along with your chosen Tally Partner, to ensure that your business is not impacted in unplanned ways.
Following are some of the principles that drive the design of Tally.ERP 9:
Exceptions are the norm:
Pause and consider your organisation. You have laid down defined processes and procedures - so why do so many things land up on your table? Generally, within a defined framework, there will often be some need for a deviation. Software programs are great at supporting rigid, well defined processes - and break down (or become complex) when managing these deviations. Principle: design to manage exceptions - defined processes will automatically be supported.
Solutions bring problems:
Especially with IT solutions! Some of your business problems are managed by a software solution and how many software problems do you now have to manage? Database administration, performance tuning, service packs, drivers, software conflicts, IT professionals - the list is endless. Principle: solving a business need should not add new problems - these must be solved as well.
Knowledge is not known:
A lot of knowledge is contextual - when the situation arises we know how to respond. Therefore, no matter how much of analysis is done, it is hardly possible to comprehend the full range of the simplest of business process. In a purchase process one may follow the order, receipt and payment for one item and just a payment for another (say a consumable). Months can go by in needs analysis and yet things will be missed out. Principle: Do not make an assumption that any system setup will not undergo change.
Change is constant:
An old phrase by now, the accelerated rate of change throws up additional challenges. You place an order for 'A' and receive 'B'; order 'x' pieces and receive 'y'. Tax structures and percentages change at random, people leave organisations without notice. Principle: design to support extreme variations.
Good is 'bad':
What's essential for someone's business can be a hindrance to you - and every business, even in the same business space, has subtle differences in what data is captured, what reports are needed and what kind of control is needed. Principle: build in common functionality and build these well, and deliver capabilities that permit extremely easy extendibility and customisability.
Blocks: Masters, Transactions, Link Masters
How do we achieve our design principles? Let's start by looking at the two building blocks used in software (this parallels life):
• Masters: Masters are what we get when we ask 'with whom?' With whom do we do business? Our customers and suppliers. 'With what?' - As in what do we transact with - services & inventory. 'Using what?' – give us taxes, units of measure, currency, batches. All these become 'masters'.
• Transactions: What do we do with masters? We transact – sales, purchases, receipts, payments - these are the 'transactions'; records of the business activities we perform.
When transactions are recorded, they create links - as in making a payment for purchase #72. The purchase reference #72 links these two documents, so we can get to know the payment status for that document, and know for which documents we have made payment. These links are called 'link masters'.
Neither masters nor transactions are truly in the hands of the software product - in the sense that these are defined by business practices. What must be captured, what is mandatory and that business transactions need to be recorded are not subject to 'design' ('how' these are done, is another matter!) What is unique is in the way these interactions are recorded, managed and reported upon.
The 'magic' of Tally is in the Link Masters - here, data of which transaction is linked to which document is maintained. The transactions themselves do not carry this information - effectively each document is an 'island' in itself, making it easy to alter, delete or insert at will - without the need to check if other transactions it refers to, exist at any time. This design permits all the flexibility required, supports incremental implementation and permits transactions to be recorded in any order (pay for purchase #72 first, then enter purchase #72).
While generating reports and totals (any totals) the above approach requires immense computing power to 'stitch' transactions together. We have developed proprietary, extremely high performance data storage & retrieval mechanisms to deliver these at very usable speeds. This architecture also allows you to mark transactions as 'optional', perform scenarios, synchronise data with branches, potentially recover from system errors, correct any errors in any transaction - anytime, report on ‘group’ companies and so many capabilities unique to Tally.ERP 9.
Editions Available
Tally.ERP 9 is presently available in two editions: Silver & Gold. (With Series B, Diamond & Platinum editions will also be available.)
Silver is for single user, while Gold is for unlimited users on a Local Area Network (LAN).
What other differences exist between editions? None - all capabilities and features will be available in every edition. The only reason to choose between editions is the number of systems from which Tally.ERP 9 can be accessed.
A 'user' in this context is actually a computer system. We do not complicate your decision with 'concurrent user', 'named user' and so on.
Therefore Tally.ERP 9 Silver can be activated (as in licensed) on one computer and used from that same computer. Tally.ERP 9 can be activated on one computer and can be accessed from any or all computers on that network.
Maintaining our philosophy - Power of Simplicity ® - you only need to take a call on which of the above options suits your needs.
If you decide to buy a Silver edition, you can migrate to Gold anytime. And with a Gold, as users increase, there is no need to come back to us for additional user licensing and avoid the commercial, purchase & administrative aspects of these changes.
Silver Edition - Single User
Where a single computer with Tally.ERP 9 is adequate for your operations, the Silver edition is what you need. A ‘user’ in this context is actually a computer system.
This edition comes with all the features & capabilities including Tally.NET and services like Remote Access.
With Silver you can manage as many companies (business entities) and personal books of accounts as you need.
You can also create as many users as you need, and provide each with the appropriate level of security. Your only restriction is that these users will all need to access Tally.ERP 9 from the system on which it is activated (licensed).
Since Silver supports Remote Access as well, you can authorise access to your Chartered Accountant, who with his Auditors’ Edition of Tally.ERP 9, can remotely provide audit, compliance and advisory services.
Similarly your Tally Service Partner can, via Remote Access, answer your queries and provide support.
As a Silver user, you can create one Tally.NET identity, which you can use to login to your own system from home or while on the move. Other users of Tally.ERP 9 can also grant access to you by authorizing this Tally.NET identity.
Gold Edition - Unlimited Multi User
Where more than one computer needs to have access to Tally.ERP 9, a Gold edition is what you need. Any number of users can simultaneously have read and write access. Note, that there can be some degradation of performance with a large number of users and we have found that the Gold edition is usable with a maximum of ten users. (Series B will deliver the Diamond & Platinum editions with support for hundreds & thousands of users).
Like with Silver you can manage as many companies (business entities) and personal books of accounts as you need. You may also create as many users as you need, and provide each with the appropriate level of security.
With Remote Access, you can authorise access to your Chartered Accountants, who with their Tally.ERP 9 - Auditors' Edition , can remotely provide audit, compliance and advisory services.
Similarly your Tally Service Partners can, via Remote Access, answers your queries and provide support.
As a Gold user, you can create ten Tally.NET identities, with which your mobile users can login to your system from home or while on the move. Other users of Tally.ERP 9 can also grant access to you by authorising these Tally.NET identities.
It is easy to migrate to Gold from Silver - contact your Tally Partner. Your license will get updated to Gold and you can now access Tally.ERP 9 from multiple systems without the need to make any other change!
Tally.ERP 9 - Auditors' Edition
Available exclusively for practicing Chartered Accountants, this edition comes will all the advantages of the Gold edition and with several extras!
These extra features are not available to Silver & Gold users:
• Computer aided audit
• Automatic scan of every ledger & voucher. These get flagged as 'potentially incorrect' with an indication of what that error could be. Send your clients these exception reports & get their clarifications
• Scrutinise records as per type of audit or compliance you are undertaking (focused audit)
• Filter out transactions you want to physically audit (for random audit)
• Generate annexure for Section 44AB; Form 3CD Annexure Clause 16, Clause 17(h), Clause 21, Clause 24(a & b), Annexure II & Clause 27
• View & verify tax liability via an all-in-one dashboard
With Remote Access these too become possible:
• Overcome the shortage of article clerks by utilising existing resources better
• Provide instant assistance & training to your article clerks
• Monitor the quality of their work
• Save on travel time and costs
• Help clients file various tax returns by verifying documents quickly
Special Tally.NET features are also available:
• Example your client has given access permission to you for audit and other purposes. You wish to assign this company to an article clerk who has been assigned a separate Tally.NET identity. Now your client need not give additional permissions to your article clerk – you can make this assignment yourself – making it easy to manage different articles as well as manage hires and exits easily
• If you actually visit the clients location and log in with your identity - all Auditors' Edition features will be automatically available at this location as well - meaning that Remote Access is not always needed
• You can login to your system or a clients system from an educational version of Tally.ERP 9 (from anywhere) or even from a regular Silver or Gold edition - you will get access to all Auditors' Edition features
Upgrading from prior versions of Tally.ERP 9, Tally 9, Tally 8.1, and earlier versions
Migrating to Tally.ERP 9 from any prior version of Tally is simple - these tools are either built into the product itself or available as migration tools that are installed along with the product.
Typically, there will be no need to make any changes to the data post migration - and the transition time could be just minutes - a few hours at most.
Getting a bit more specific, Tally.ERP 9 will migrate all data from Tally 7.2 onwards, without any assistance. If you have an older version (6.3, 5.4 and so on) you will need to bring your data to 7.2 and then migrate (our Sales & Support partners will be able to help you). In any case these tools are available at no extra cost.
In a few cases you might have customised or extended Tally – this would have been done with one or more TDL's, most likely built by one of our partners. Tally.ERP 9 comes with a TDL conversion tool that will attempt to convert such TDL's. Note, the word 'attempt' – since both the product and the TDL language evolve, there is a small possibility that the conversion may not succeed. In such cases you would need to contact the author of the customisation and make the necessary changes to the TDL. We therefore recommend that where customisations exist, there be a simple pilot undertaken to assess impact.
Account Management is now a major feature available in Tally.ERP 9. As part of the 'Control Centre', you have a powerful way of managing your deployments. Included is serial number management.
Migrating from other products
When moving to Tally.ERP 9 from other software (legacy) products you have two choices:
1. Only relevant masters (Ledgers, Items and so on) are posted
2. Masters and transactions are posted
The first option is the simplest - you 'cut over' to Tally.ERP 9 by ensuring that all opening balances and open dues (bill numbers, due dates & amounts) are available; here you continue to keep your previous software only to review old transactions.
The second option ranges from simple to very complex depending on how current transactions are stored and managed – yet you may choose to go with this option for several reasons and this is fully supported..
In both cases, what is required is that data be extracted from the legacy system and be made available in a specific XML format, which is then imported by Tally.ERP 9. These formats are available from within our product itself: all that is required is that you create a master or a transaction (in Tally.ERP 9) with a sample of the data you will provide and export these. The exported XML is in the same XML format that is required for import!
As before, it is best to plan this as a structured exercise along with your chosen Tally Partner, to ensure that your business is not impacted in unplanned ways.
