Overview
The profit and loss tells you how a month went. The books are the double-entry record behind it: each receipt and payment as a voucher, each ledger's balance, and a trial balance that has to agree. You don't type them. Whenever you open the books they are brought up to date from what is recorded elsewhere, and a record changed or undone changes its voucher too.
The books are kept on receipts and payments: a fee is income when it is received, a salary an expense when it is paid.
What posts by itself
| Record | Voucher |
|---|---|
| A fee received | Receipt: cash, the bank (UPI, transfer, cheque) or online collections, against the fee's income ledger. School fees go to their fee head (Tuition fee, Annual charges…), late fines to Late fees, transport to Transport fees, batch fees to Batch fees. |
| A fee refunded | Payment, reversing the income, dated when the refund was recorded. |
| An online course sale, or its refund | Receipt into online collections, against Course sales (a refund reverses it). |
| A salary paid | Payment: the gross to Salaries and wages; PF, ESI, professional tax and TDS to their payable ledgers; an advance recovered back to Staff advances; the net from the bank or cash. |
| Employer PF and ESI on a payroll payment | Journal: Employer PF and EDLI, and Employer ESI, against PF payable and ESI payable. |
| A staff advance given | Payment from cash to Staff advances. |
| An expense | Payment to the expense's category (Rent, Electricity…) from cash or the bank. |
| Online collections paid out to you | Contra: from online collections into the bank. |
Each voucher is numbered in its kind's series for the financial year: RCT/2627/0001 for receipts, PMT for payments, JRN for journals, CTR for contras. Posting again never adds a voucher twice, and an edited record rewrites its voucher under the same number.
The day book
Books → Day book lists every voucher between two dates, each with its debit and credit lines and narration. The financial year so far is shown first. A note at the top says what was just brought up to date: vouchers added, changed, or removed because their record was undone.
Ledgers and the chart of accounts
Ledgers shows one ledger's statement for the dates: the opening balance, each entry with its voucher, the running balance and the closing balance. Type part of a ledger's name to pick it.
Chart of accounts lists every ledger under its Tally group: Cash-in-Hand, Bank Accounts, Direct Incomes, Indirect Expenses, Current Liabilities, Duties & Taxes and so on. Ledgers the books made can be renamed but keep their group, so postings land in the right place. Add your own with New ledger: a second bank account, a loan, owner's capital, fixed assets.
Opening balances
The books start from the beginning of the current financial year, or a date you choose on the Tally tab under Books start from.
Vouchers you enter
For anything not recorded elsewhere (capital brought in, a loan, a bank charge, a correction), press Add a voucher on the day book. Choose the kind, the date and a narration, then a ledger and an amount on each line, as a debit or a credit. It saves only when debits and credits are equal. Vouchers entered here can be deleted; ones that come from a record change only when the record does.
Trial balance
Trial balance shows every ledger's balance as on a date, debit or credit, with the totals. It says Balanced when they agree, which they always should.
Sending the books to Tally
The Tally tab makes two files for TallyPrime (or Tally.ERP 9):
- Ledgers: every ledger under its group, with its opening balance. In TallyPrime, open your company and choose Import (Alt + O) → Masters. If Tally asks what to do with ledgers that already exist, choose Ignore duplicates.
- Vouchers for the dates shown: Import → Transactions.
In Tally.ERP 9 it is Gateway of Tally → Import of Data → Masters, then Vouchers. If you keep more than one company there, enter the company name in Tally in the Settings card on the same tab, exactly as Tally shows it.
Questions
Is this a substitute for an accountant? No. It keeps the day-to-day books straight and saves the typing; your accountant still does depreciation, accruals, GST and the returns, in Tally or wherever they work.
A salary was paid by mistake and undone. Its voucher disappears the next time the books are opened.
Several schools? Vouchers carry the school of their record. With one school picked in the switcher, the day book, ledgers and trial balance show that school's vouchers. Opening balances belong to the whole organisation, so they count only with All schools.