INTRODUCTION TO TALLY

Welcome to the world of TALLY! It is really remarkable that in the present scenario of software market primarily dominated by foreign companies like Microsoft, Borland, and Lotus etc. Indian software has become hugely popular. In this chapter we take a look at, what exactly TALLY is and at reasons, what have made this software so widely popular?

Indubitably despite the presence of so many other accounting packages available in our market, Tally remains the undisputed king of financial accounting packages available in India. It has been one of the favorite subjects of the rah-rah school of accounts in the last few years. Although Tally cannot change your personal life but it can handle practically any kind of transaction you would need, whatever your business.

In the simplest possible terms Tally is a financial accounting package (with a difference) and at technical lingo it is Extended Enterprise System. You will understand these concepts as you read the book. Unlike other packages Tally doesn’t involve any coding, thereby removing all dreadful sounding ho-hum terms related to programming as well as additional layers of information between your accounts and you. In order to use Tally, you neither need to learn new accounting methods nor should change your existing style of handling account. The software team of Tally has made all efforts to retain the flexibility of your traditional practice of manual accounting. The information can be fed as well as retrieved at random and all human errors can be corrected. Accounts can be classified in any desired manner and all outstanding can be tracked. Many more facilities like this, give you a near duplicate of your manual system of accounting at enormous speed.

A transaction in accounting terminology means transfer of money or money’s worth from one party to another, for example sale of goods, purchase of furniture etc. are examples of transactions. Fundamentally there are two systems of transaction: pre-transaction and post transaction. Let us explore them in detail, assume that you have to make payment to a party, in a pre transaction system, this is done by first creating a voucher, which is signed by the payee and then the transaction is completed by actually making the payment. These pre transaction systems provide preprinted voucher. Cheques and involve creation of internal entries in case of completed transaction. The post transaction system follows the traditional practice of entering a voucher or a cash bill into a cashbook after the payment has been made. Tally is a post transaction system It follows the traditional methods of accounting, that, is the payment is first made on the basis of existing accounting methods (i.e. against a voucher or cash bill) and that information is fed into the Tally. The simple fact that your existing system of accounting remains untouched by Tally is a big reason behind the success of this package.

We are going to learn about Computerized Accounting System. Before we delve into the details of the system, first we’ll get acquainted with term Accounting & its concepts to feel comfortable during implementation of an Accounting System.

Late 80s and early 90s was era of Financial Accounting Software. Users upon acquiring computer for first time were happy to do Financial Accounting that freed them from printed instant Reports. But soon they realized that only a part of business information is being processed leaving the most important part still to be carried out manually. Entrepreneurs started looking for software that will take care of Production & Inventory COMPUTER.

Computers are extremely versatile and finding their way into every business, industry and research activity today. The uses of computers are diverse and encompass entertainment, education, problem-solving, research, decision-making, home and personal management, data banks, communication and message services, etc. These computers can be used by any executive through a variety of user-friendly menu-driven graphical user interface package without any prior computer experience. Do Billing for them, analyze which item moves fast and which don’t who is buying/selling what and when as these information helps greatly in production and materials planning, ultimately improving bottom line.

Many software developers offered separate Financial and Inventory software to take care but users wanted a singe software where if a Invoice is entered that will update Accounts as well inventory information. This is what was termed as Integrated Business Accounting Software.

In this courseware, we give stress on how a Business Organization can computerize all its activities like Accounting, Production, Third Party Jobbing Invoicing & Inventory, which takes maximum time of manual work and is error prone due to numerous computation. Many users are still continuing with a manual billing as most of the software are not flexible enough to meet the complex and varied requirements of various manufacturing process, trade practices and invoicing terms, People place a host of information in Orders, Goods Receipt Note, Challans and Invoices as per their needs and choice, use stationery of varied size and styles.