Tally on Linux - The dream comes true

We have missed out 26th of January 2011 to make this announcement which we are really upset about since this article is all about freedom of software usability. But today is also not a bad day "Indians are breaking the world cup shell".

We have respect for Tally which has been serving as one of the best Accounting Software in Indian Market especially in SMEs people have blind faith and belief in Tally. Tally pricing i.e. Single user for Rs. 13,500 and Unlimited Multi-user for 40,500 is perfectly pricing for Indian market. There is no question about it. But the question here is why should we pay extra 20-22 thousand rupees, on OS and basic applications, per machine to just use Tally.

Just for using Tally we purchase a License of Microsoft Windows (Rs. 8000), Ms. Office (Rs. 12,000) and Antivirus (Rs. 1,000) per desktop pc (price is approximate). Why cant we get something like tally for Linux.

All other alternatives like Text Editors, Office Applications, Multimedia Applications, Internet Applications are easily available with Linux. It is just because of Tally that many single users and multiusers have to purchase Proprietary software and invest huge amount on software licensing (or join software piracy in that matter).

Since last 1.5 to 2 years we have been getting lot of enquiries from people who want to port Tally in any way on the Linux. People have tried Wine to port tally on Linux but Tally with wine doesn't perform in a way that it can be used for serious work in enterprise environment. Tally on Linux ? have always been a question.

Slowly and steadily we are able to gather a group of people, who now believe in open-source terminology and technology and who are interested in developing an open-source alternative of Tally. Our planning till now will definitely lead us in creating an open-source Alternative which will exactly work like Tally.

Next big question is migrating old tally data to new open-source alternative. This will be taken care of by a team of 17 tdl programmers willing to work on open-source technology and provide people with a badly needed accounting software that can easily run on Tally with previous data intact.

Since the project is open-source we cannot promise for a date or month of release. But most probably by March 2012 we would be coming up with the first beta release which will be made available to people through Free website downloads. Soon our dream of Tally on Linux will rise over the horizons of Computing World.

This project will also be a source of study for people willing to work on open-source. Technology we invite more and more people for the same.

Carry Forward Closing Balance to new year in Tally 9

As new financial year has started tally users are busy finalizing their books. Some of ApniTally users as well as my own customers have raised query related to accounting in new financial year. They are asking if they should start a new company for new financial year. Then they have query how to put last year's closing balance in new financial year.

We face few questions while entering new year data like :-
1. How to put opening balances as closing balances for last year are not available at this moment?
2. What to do with those ledgers which are not going to be used in next year?
3. How to get rid of last years mistakes or errors?
4. How to include inventory in this year's books?

There are many solutions to this problem but we have to choose the best. Creating a new company can be one solutions as you would get rid of all those ledgers which have zero balance. In this case you can continue entering vouchers as they come. You have to feed opening balances of each ledger manually when ever your last year balance sheet is finalized.

Splitting the company :

Another better solutions is to continue entering data in existing company by changing the period in gateway of tally. When ever you have to make changes in previous period just enter the last year's period and record the entry.When ever you get you company balance sheet finalized after entering the closing transactions just split the company on 31 march.This way you would automatically get the opening balances of the all ledgers and there would be no difference in opening balances. But a word of caution here is that do this after finalizing the balance sheet, because once split you will not be able to make changes in last years company. What ever entries you would make would reflect only current company. Later on you can delete all those ledgers which are having zero balance or dead.This method has all the advantages.