How to migrate from Tally to an ERP, step by step.

When to switch.

Pick one cutover date. Everything before it stays in Tally; everything from it goes into the new system. You move Tally’s closing balances for the day before.

Always start on the first day of a month, a quarter or the financial year. A mid-month cutover splits that month’s sales, purchases and GST between two systems.

Allow two to four weeks before that date to clean, export, load and test the data.

Clean the data in Tally first.

Whatever is wrong in Tally will be wrong in the new system, only harder to find. Back up the company, then tidy the data where your team already knows the screens.

• Merge duplicate ledgers, such as one customer created twice.
• Check every party’s GSTIN and state. Our free GSTIN validator checks a whole list at once.
• Check every stock item has its HSN or SAC code, GST rate and unit.
• Clear the Suspense account and any balances you can’t explain.
• Settle or adjust old open bills that will never be paid, with your CA’s agreement.
• Fix negative stock in any godown or batch.

What to export from TallyPrime.

You need two kinds of file. Masters are the lists: ledgers, groups, items, units and godowns. Balances are the figures for the day before cutover: the trial balance, open bills and stock.

Excel is easiest to check by eye. XML or JSON suits whoever loads the data, if their tools read it, so ask first. Keep a PDF of each balance report too: it is what you check the new system against.

Map Tally’s groups to a chart of accounts.

Tally sorts ledgers into groups. An ERP uses a chart of accounts, where each account is an asset, liability, income or expense. Most groups map across cleanly; a few need a decision.

Write the mapping in a sheet before anything is loaded: Tally group, Tally ledger, new account. Your CA should approve it, because it decides how your balance sheet and profit and loss read.

GST and TDS: what carries over.

Your input tax credit is not stored in Tally. It sits in your electronic credit ledger on the GST portal, which the GST system keeps. Changing software does not touch it.

What moves are your own ledger balances: the input and output GST accounts in your books, head by head. Keep reconciling them with the portal as before.

Keep a list of pre-cutover purchase bills whose credit is not yet claimed. You will match them against the portal after you switch.

For TDS, bring in what you deducted but have not yet paid, by kind of payment. Set the TDS section on each supplier or expense account, so the next deduction is right.

TDS now runs under the Income-tax Act, 2025, with new section numbers, while older Tally data may carry 1961 Act sections such as 194C. Ask your CA which section each account should carry.

Check the numbers on cutover day.

Before anyone enters a new sale, put the new system’s reports next to Tally’s PDFs. Check line by line: two errors can cancel out in a total.

Value stock with the costing method you used in Tally. A different method gives a different value for the same quantity.

When every line matches, the owner and the CA sign off the opening balances in writing. That sheet is what you show an auditor later.

• Trial balance: every ledger’s balance matches Tally’s, and debits equal credits.
• Receivables and payables: each party’s total equals its open bills.
• Stock: quantity and value match by item, godown and batch.
• Bank: the opening balance agrees with the bank statement, less uncleared items.
• GST and TDS: each tax account matches Tally.

Keep Tally, read-only.

Don’t uninstall Tally. After cutover, nobody posts in it except last year’s audit adjustments. Then update the new system’s opening balances to match.

Take a final backup after the audit and keep it in two places, with a PC that can open it, for when a customer, auditor or tax officer asks about an old invoice.

A lifetime Tally licence keeps working for this without a TSS renewal.

A company must keep its books of account and vouchers for at least eight financial years. Other businesses have retention rules under GST and income tax. Ask your CA how long yours must stay readable.

Common mistakes.

Each of these is cheap to avoid and expensive to fix after go-live.

• Moving every voucher from every year. Move masters and balances; keep the history in Tally.
• Typing opening balances by hand instead of loading them from Tally’s export.
• One balance per customer instead of open bills, so nobody knows what is overdue.
• A stock value in the books that differs from the value in the stock report.
• Entering everything in both systems for weeks. The two drift apart, and nobody knows which is right.
• Going live without the CA’s sign-off on the opening balances.
• Training people after go-live instead of before.

A migration checklist.

Give each row an owner and a date. A row is done only when its last column is true.

The cutover, day by day.

A plan for a cutover on the first of a month. Move the days to suit your date.

Moving to PrimoERP.

If you move to PrimoERP with Quick Start or Guided Go-Live, most of this work is done by our team, not yours. We bring in your customers, suppliers, items and opening balances, then check the numbers with you before you go live.

Self-serve is free, with step-by-step guides and import templates for Tally and Excel. Quick Start is ₹9,999 once and takes about 8–10 hours, online: customers, suppliers and items set up, opening balances brought in, GST set up for your GSTINs and two training sessions. It is free with an annual Business plan.

Guided Go-Live is ₹39,999 and takes about 4 weeks: your data moved and checked with you, one industry setup configured, approvals and payroll set up, and four training sessions. Prices are before GST.

We sit with you in go-live week, then stay on phone, WhatsApp and email. Your accountant gets their own login. PrimoERP needs an internet connection; if you mostly work offline, Tally may suit you better.