Order matters more than speed
Masters before vouchers, vouchers before balances. Reversing that order is how migrations produce orphaned entries and ledgers that exist twice under slightly different names.
The sequence is not a preference; a voucher cannot attach to a ledger that has not arrived yet.
What moves
| What | Comes across as | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Groups & ledgers | Ledgers with parent groups | Duplicate names differing by spacing |
| Stock items | Items with godowns and units | Missing HSN — needed later for GST |
| Vouchers | Voucher lines on one GL | Custom voucher types needing a mapping |
| Closing balances | Opening balances at cut-off | The line that will not tie is the one worth finding |
| Numbering | Series continuing per fiscal year | Gaps that already existed in Tally |
What does not move — and why that is fine
Some things are deliberately left behind: screen layouts, printing preferences, custom TDL, and any local report formats. None of it is accounting data.
The person who will miss a customised print format is rarely the person deciding the migration. Show them the PDF templates before the move, not after.
The checks that actually prove it
- Trial balance ties. Not approximately — exactly, at the cut-off date.
- Ledger count matches, and every ledger sits under the same parent group as before.
- Voucher count by type and period matches. A difference is a question, not a rounding.
- Stock quantity item-wise, godown by godown.
- Last voucher number per series — numbering should continue, not restart.
- Spot-check five vouchers end to end: header, lines, tax, narration.
The reconciliation certificate performs the first five automatically and lists any line that does not tie. The sixth is worth doing by hand once.
Run in parallel before you commit
Move one client, keep Tally alongside for a month, and file from whichever you prefer while you build confidence. Re-sync at the end of the month and check the certificate again.
A firm with forty clients should never test a migration on forty clients.
What makes it reversible
Everything exports back — masters, vouchers, balances — on any day. That is what makes running in parallel a genuine option rather than a comforting phrase: if you decide against it, you have lost a month of double-keying, not your books.
Bring one company file
We migrate it and read the certificate together — nothing committed.
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