Tally was set up in 1986 by S S Goenka who designed an accounting package to simplify daily accounts processes. It is a silicon valley based accounting software which has been adopted in 88 countries beyond India. It is considered strong in providing vouchers, financial statements and taxation. Tally is commonly used accounting software in India, designed for small and midsized companies, and now it has extended its business across borders. With the new modifications it can suits the requirements of many international organizations. It provides cheap automation solution. It specializes in providing financial management and controls, inventory, purchase and payables, sales and receivables and payroll. The new security features enables the user to define roles and access rights.
Some of the attractive features of Tally are -
1. Tally supports multi-company, multi time period, multiple cost and profit centers, multi currency, multi-units, multi budget scenarios, locations and multiple languages.
2. The remote capabilities help in boosting collaboration.
3. Tally accounting software is easy and cheap to install because the customer support is provided at low cost.
4. It can be customized easily to meet requirements of a company. The 2009 version came with excise features for manufacturing units.
5. It is straightforward, easy to use and adaptable.
6. Tally accounting software can suit the requirement of organizations of varying sizes and provide fast solution. It provides scalable solution to accommodate increased number of user.
Accounting module features
1. The accounting modules can work without codes, and complex ledger systems are easily managed by the products.
2. The software provides unified ledger solution and the modules such as General, Sales and Purchase ledger can be easily integrated to provide single ledger.
3. Book keeping records complex transactions of vouchers, adjustment journals, memorandums, reversing journals, income and expenses, receipts, payments etc.
4. One can instantly get the balance sheet, P &L statement, Cash flow, Fund Flow, Trial Balance etc.
5. Features such as receivables and payables, ratio analysis of the performance, budgeting, auditing, and security based on units and companies and scenario management is provided. The new VAT rules and Sales Tax handling is also provided.
Inventory module
1. The inventory modules of the software provide multi location stock control, stock movement, batch wise stock reports, and re-order reports.
2. The Sales and Purchase orders can be generated by the system.
3. Sales invoice can be generated directly from the software and various formats of invoicing are provided by the software.
SMTP Emails and Reports
The software uses the SMTP protocol to get emails invoices from customers, to send reminder letters and to send accounts statements.
Reports and documents can be sent through HTTP and FTP in HTML format and it also enables the software to send messages to customer to advertise about the new product range.
Advantages
1. Tally suits the requirement of Indian companies as it integrates local rules and regulations and it is easy to handle. It is also known for providing accurate and easy solution. Users who are not expert in using software can handle it easily.
2. Tally accounting software provide Value Added Tax, service tax features and TDS.
3. Tally accounting software is a cheap accounting package.
4. It supports bar codes, automates taxes and service billing, manages input taxes etc.
5. It has also started providing on-demand solution to attract buyers.
Disadvantages
1. Tally accounting software has improved features but it lacks support for many new technologies.
2. It has DOS - GUI based interface which runs through keyboard.
3. The software aims to provide fast data entry but Data migration is also a big problem for users.
