The short answer
Most businesses do not need to throw Tally away. The usual move is to keep Tally for accounts and GST, and run sales, stock, production and approvals in a custom ERP that sends every invoice to Tally on its own. Masters and opening balances are taken from Tally and checked line by line, the first part goes live in 6 to 10 weeks, and the switch happens at the start of a month, never in the middle.
Do you need to leave Tally at all?
Often, no. Tally is good, low-cost accounting software, and your accountant probably knows it inside out. The problem is rarely the books. It is everything around them: orders taken in Excel, stock checked by phone, approvals on WhatsApp, and someone re-typing it all into Tally at the end of the day.
If most of your work already happens inside Tally, stay. If most of it happens around Tally, it is time to move that work into a proper system.
Five signs it is time
If two or more of these are true, the work around Tally has become bigger than the work inside it:
- Several branches need the same stock and the same numbers at the same moment.
- Entries need someone's approval before they are posted, and that happens on WhatsApp.
- Production is planned in spreadsheets, because Tally's pages describe no production planning.
- Sales, stores and dispatch work from their own sheets, and month-end starts with reconciling them against Tally.
- Managers wait for someone to build a report to answer a simple question.
Keep Tally for accounts, or replace it?
There are two ways to move, and the first is the most common.
- Keep Tally for accounts. The custom ERP runs orders, stock, production, dispatch and approvals, and sends invoices and receipts to Tally on its own. Your accountant keeps working in Tally, and nobody types an invoice twice.
- Replace Tally completely. The custom ERP keeps the books as well, so every number lives in one system. This suits businesses with several companies, branches or currencies, where keeping two systems in step is more work than it is worth.
What moves from Tally, and what stays
Move what the new system needs to run from day one, and leave the rest where you can still read it.
- Masters: customers and suppliers with their GST numbers, items, stock groups, units and godowns, cleaned of duplicates first.
- Opening balances: every ledger, checked so the opening trial balance in the new system matches Tally to the rupee.
- Opening stock: quantity and value by item and by godown, checked against Tally's stock summary.
- Outstanding bills: what each customer owes and what you owe each supplier, bill by bill, so collections continue without a gap.
- History: moved too if you want it. Otherwise it stays in Tally, where you can still read it; moving years of old vouchers costs time and rarely changes a decision.
How long it takes: a week-by-week plan
A typical move for a business with one to three branches, with the first part of the system live in 6 to 10 weeks. This is the longer version; a smaller first part moves faster:
- Weeks 1 and 2: we sit with sales, stores, accounts and management, and write down how work and money move today, including the rules nobody has written before.
- Week 3: the plan is agreed in writing, including what goes live first and what is sent to Tally.
- Weeks 4 to 7: the first part is built, with screens shown every week to the people who will use them.
- Week 8: a trial migration from Tally, with every balance and stock figure checked against Tally's own reports.
- Weeks 9 and 10: the first part goes live alongside Tally. Both systems run side by side for two to four weeks, and the switch is made on the first day of a month.
A worked example: what staying on spreadsheets around Tally costs
Take a distributor with three branches and 25 staff. Each branch spends about two hours a day copying orders and stock movements between Excel, WhatsApp and Tally. That is six hours a day, about 150 hours a month over 25 working days, or 1,800 hours a year.
If a staff member costs ₹60,000 a month for about 200 working hours, those 150 hours cost ₹45,000 a month: ₹5,40,000 a year, about $6,000, spent on copying. The first module of a custom ERP starts at $3,000, and once it is live, most of that copying stops. The example is illustrative; your own numbers come from counting the hours.
What it costs
A custom ERP from Helmsman starts at $3,000 for a single module and typically costs $3,000 to $80,000, depending on the modules, branches, companies and integrations. There is no fee per user, and the code is yours once paid.
For comparison, Tally's India list prices on 29 October 2026 were ₹22,500 for Silver and ₹67,500 for Gold for life, with TSS renewal at ₹4,500 or ₹13,500 a year and TallyPrime Server at ₹2,70,000, excluding GST. Keeping Tally for accounts means those costs simply continue.
Five mistakes that make the move painful
Every one of these is avoidable, and every one is common:
- Switching in the middle of a month, so two systems hold half a month each.
- Moving masters as they are, so the same customer arrives under three names.
- Skipping the side-by-side run, so the first real mistake is found by a customer.
- Leaving the accountant out until the end, when they are the person who signs off the balances.
- Moving everything at once, instead of putting one part live and proving it first.