TALLY AND ITS CORE FEATURES

Tally is popularly known as an accounting software for small and medium businesses.
It does all the functions of accounting that a particularly mid sized 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 an 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 (I give this example often to various people) did you know that you
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 (if not thousands) of examples I can
give you about Tally like the one above.
So what exactly is Tally?
I have broken the whole explanation into different parts for your ease.

WHAT IS TALLY
Well, Tally is a complete Enterprise Resource Planning system with a 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 it 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.
For example, if you are starting out a general store, what would you require?
1. Accounting

2. Billing
3. Sales and profit analysis
4. Banking
5. Inventory
6. Taxation (VAT, TDS, TCS)
I have brainstormed the needs of a newly opened general store which are all covered
by Tally. There are 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 a
software for its functioning, Tally can be a best fit.
This was Tally and it can do much more. I will take you to explain some of the core
features of Tally.

CORE FEATURES OF TALLY

Ive discussed some of the very core features or you can say some of the important
functionality of Tally. 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 he or she has not heard
of Tally before.

ACCOUNTING
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.
Because many people do not exactly know how to use those features.
If we particularly talk about accounting, Tally has segmented it in 6 different
functions. They are:

1. Contra (Only for cash and bank related entries)

2. Payment (For payment entries)
3. Receipt (For receipt entries)
4. Journal (For entries which doesnt include cash or bank and for closing entries)
5. Sales (For sales billing)
6. Purchases (For purchase billing)
There are many more functions related to accounting like Credit Note, Debit Note,
Reverse Journal, Memos and so on which aid in performing accounting procedures in
an easy manner.

BILLING
Billing is an inevitable part of any business and its 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 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.
In Tally, Sales and Purchase vouchers are actually for billing but they can also be used
as a simple voucher. Everything in a bill you can imagine is there in Tally for the
purpose of billing.

PAYROLL
This feature is of use when you are having a good number of employees. For a 1 or 2
employees it makes no sense to purchase a software like Tally. But if your or your
clients business has a good amount of transactions then you may require Tally.
For maintaining Payroll in Tally, there are functions like Employee Categories,
Employee Groups, Attendance, Pay Heads and of course Employees.

For a manufacturing entity there are functions such as Units (Work) and Production
Types by which information regarding production done by employees in specific units
can also be measured.
Complex payroll calculations are automatically done in Tally when we use the Payroll
function.

INVENTORY
As billing is an inevitable part of a business and so is the inventory. Effective
inventory management can save huge amount of costs especially if you are
functioning in a manufacturing environment.
In Tally you can classify inventories on the basis of groups, units, tariff (applicable
for goods on which VAT is levied), different stock items, godowns in which they
are located.
If you or your clients have a business in which inventory management is required and
if you have Tally then there is no need to worry about inventory management.

BANKING
In this era of digitization, without banking no business can survive. Banking
functionality is very well covered by Tally. Though it was not present in earlier
versions of Tally but is there in Tally.ERP 9.
You can directly print cheques, maintain cheque register, create deposit slips and
payment advice in Tally.
Most important function in Banking is Bank Reconciliation. BRS will eliminate the
tedious task of reconciling the bank statements with the books of accounts. As per my
opinion this will save a lot of valuable time.

TAXATION
A business cannot operate in isolation. It needs a society to operate which is governed
by a government which levies different types of taxes on a business as it is a
commercial activity.
Well, Taxation is also covered by Tally. Right from Income Tax, VAT, Excise,
Customs and Service Tax everything is taken care of by Tally.

If you are covered under Audit as per Income Tax Act, 1961 then there are different
functions for that also such as Form 3CD, Form 3CA, 44AB Audit, Form 3CB and
so on.
If you have taxation functions enabled then billing is done including taxes on the sales
or purchases.
At the end of the year or a particular accounting period tax credit or tax payable
automatically gets calculated by Tally.

REPORTING
Different types of reports are required at different times for making effective business
decisions. In Tally there are reports such as Statutory Reports, Payroll Reports, Job
Work In and Out Reports and the most significant Exception Reports.
I like Exception Reports because it displays the information what should not have
happened and that is what is necessary to take a look at while running a business or
simply writing accounts of a client.
Reports are not limited to just reports in Tally. In fact at every screen in Tally, you can
print it or export it and that can also be called a report according to my opinion.
For example, if you are in Sales Register then you can print that which can also be
called an essential piece of information in the form of report.

CONCLUSION:
This is what I think Tally is. I have not seen a software like Tally which is so simple
and still have so much in it that I cannot even remember all the things. This is why
Tally is used in more than 100 different countries apart from India.
From a shop to manufacturing enterprise Tally can do all of it.