Migrating to Tally.ERP 9 from any prior version of Tally is simple - these tools are either built into the product itself or available as migration tools that are installed along with the product.

Typically, there will be no need to make any changes to the data post migration - and the transition time could be just minutes - a few hours at most.

Getting a bit more specific, Tally.ERP 9 will migrate all data from Tally 7.2 onwards, without any assistance. If you have an older version (6.3, 5.4 and so on) you will need to bring your data to 7.2 and then migrate (our Sales & Support partners will be able to help you). In any case these tools are available at no extra cost.

In a few cases you might have customised or extended Tally – this would have been done with one or more TDL's, most likely built by one of our partners. Tally.ERP 9 comes with a TDL conversion tool that will attempt to convert such TDL's. Note, the word 'attempt' – since both the product and the TDL language evolve, there is a small possibility that the conversion may not succeed. In such cases you would need to contact the author of the customisation and make the necessary changes to the TDL. We therefore recommend that where customisations exist, there be a simple pilot undertaken to assess impact.

Account Management is now a major feature available in Tally.ERP 9. As part of the 'Control Centre', you have a powerful way of managing your deployments. Included is serial number management.

When moving to Tally.ERP 9 from other software (legacy) products you have two choices:
• Only relevant masters (Ledgers, Items and so on) are posted
• Masters and transactions are posted

The first option is the simplest - you 'cut over' to Tally.ERP 9 by ensuring that all opening balances and open dues (bill numbers, due dates & amounts) are available; here you continue to keep your previous software only to review old transactions.

The second option ranges from simple to very complex depending on how current transactions are stored and managed – yet you may choose to go with this option for several reasons and this is fully supported.

In both cases, what is required is that data be extracted from the legacy system and be made available in a specific XML format, which is then imported by Tally.ERP 9. These formats are available from within our product itself: all that is required is that you create a master or a transaction (in Tally.ERP 9) with a sample of the data you will provide and export these. The exported XML is in the same XML format that is required for import!

As before, it is best to plan this as a structured exercise along with your chosen Tally Partner, to ensure that your business is not impacted in unplanned ways.