Operating Tally.

To select an option or to navigate across options:

Use direction keys, mouse click on the option, or press the letters highlighted on the options to open the
corresponding menu or screen.

To exit from any screen:

Press ESC or CTRL+Q to exit from any screen.

To exit from menus and sub – menus:

Press ESC key or CTRL + Q to move to previous menu.

To quit tally

Press ESC key at Gateway of Tally.

Press CTRL + Q to exit without confirmation from Gateway of Tally

At the time of entering information:

Use ENTER key or TAB key to navigate forward and

Use BACKSPACE to move to previous field.

To save entered information:

Press CTRL+A to save information from any field to save information. You can skip those fields which are
not necessary.
Or
Press ENTER key after last field. Tally will prompt you to save. Press Y for Yes, N for No.
Company Creation
You can create any number of companies in tally. Meaning, you can maintain accounts of multiple businesses
in tally.

After creating a company, it will be listed at Gateway of Tally along with its period information.

To close this company and to work with other company. Follow these steps.

Press ALT+F1 to close current company.

You can also click on the buttons on the right side.

The underlined options like F1: Shut Cmp can

be accessed with the ALT key followed by
pressing underlined word.

Rest, which are not underlined, can be accessed

directly without pressing ALT key.

For ex: If I press F12, I can directly open

Configure Screen
When you close a company, you get a screen with these options. Here, you can create a new company or
select an existing company which is already created.

If you want to change details of a company which were entered at the time of company creation. Follow
these steps:

Make sure that the company is selected.

At the gateway of Tally, press ALT+F3. It will display Company Info Screen

Select Alter and then select the company you want to change information of. And make any changes you
want to.

If you want to delete the company, then, press ALT+D at company alteration screen.
Ledgers
Ledgers are first and foremost thing that you need to create in order to maintain accounts.

You need to create ledgers in following scenarios:

When you switch from manual to computerised accounting to transfer closing balance.

If your company is new and it doesn’t have any previous year closing balance.

Then you need to create ledgers as and when transaction takes place.

For example:

To record transaction:

Ajay invested capital worth 2,00,000/-.

You need to create ledger for:

Ajay Capital, and

Cash is already created by default.

To record transaction:

Purchased goods worth 5000/- from Star Enterprises.

You need to create ledger for:

Purchase A/c

Star Enterprises A/c.

Similarly, for sales, other supplier’s account, buyer’s accounts, you need to create their respective ledgers
before passing journal entry.

Note: Once a ledger is created for the first time, then you don’t need to create it again.

For example:

If you have already created a purchase ledger, then it can be used for future purchase transactions.
Only create those ledgers which are new and not created.

You can create ledgers in advance if you have details of suppliers, buyers, bank a/c, expenses that you are
usually going to deal with.

And don’t provide any opening balance, since there is no closing balance from previous year.

You can delete a ledger in alteration mode by pressing ALT+D. You can delete them only when you have not
passed any journal entry related to that ledger. If there’s any journal entry passed, you need to delete it first.

At multi-ledger alteration screen, if you want to clear opening balance from all the ledger, press ALT+Z.
Prefer creating ledgers in Single Ledger mode.

That way you will be able to enter more information about a ledger.

For example:

For a bank account ledger, you cannot provide details like Bank A/c no, Bank Name in multi-ledger creation
screen. But it is possible with single ledger creation.

For a supplier’s/buyer’s ledger, GST information can be added only in single ledger creation mode.

After you create a ledger, you can continue to create other ledgers.

You can press Page Up key to navigate to the preceding ledger and press Page Down to navigate down to
the current ledger creation. You can also modify details there and press CTRL+A to save new information.

For example: If I created ledgers in following order at ledger creation screen.

 Capital
 HDFC Bank
 Super Stationery
 Current ledger creation screen.

If I press the key, Page Up, I would navigate to Super Stationery. If I press it again, I would navigate to
HDFC Bank ledger creation screen. Similarly, if I press the Page Down key twice, from HDFC ledger, I would
navigate to current ledger creation screen.

The keys Page Up, and Page Down are usually used for navigating to and from previous task.

You can use them whenever you create/alter something, not just ledgers.

Ledger Display
There is also an option called Display under Ledgers menu. It is used for displaying contents of a ledger in
read only mode. You can use it to verify any detail without accidently changing it. You can operate it the
same way as Alter option.
Group
A group will define the type of the ledger that you are creating. A group defines whether the ledger is an
asset type, or liability, or expense or income etc.

If accounts group doesn’t exists, then it would be difficult to distinguish accounting nature among various
ledgers.
Therefore, a ledger under Capital Account, attributes that ledger as a capital account. A ledger under Sundry
creditor, attributes that ledger as a ledger of a supplier and so on.

A separate pdf is provided which contains ledgers and its respective group. You can refer to it while creating
ledgers.

There are 28 pre-defined groups available in tally. To view them, go to

Gateway of Tally>Accounts Info>Groups>Display(under Multiple Groups)>All Items

These are the default groups which you can select.

However, you can create a custom group based on an existing group. You can define a primary group or a
sub-group based on existing group.
For example:

If you want to create a group called Bills Payables, which are liabilities, then follow these steps:

Gateway of Tally>Accounts Info>Groups>Create

The Group Creation screen will appear, enter the following information:

Press CTRL+A to create this group.

We just created a primary group. You can see that the field, Under, has value Primary. You can use this
group at the time of creating a ledger.
You can also create a sub-group.

For example:

Salary A/c is an expense account. Its ledger is created under the primary group – Indirect Expense. Instead,
why not create a sub-group called Salary based on an existing group - Indirect Expense.

Here, I created a sub-group called Salary. Now, you can define a sub-group called Accounts Department
Salary under sub-group Salary

You can press CTRL+L to navigate to Ledger creation screen from Group Creation Screen.

press CTRL+G from to navigate to Group Creation screen from Ledger Creation screen
And then create ledgers under that group.

For example, you can create a salary account ledger for an individual working under accounts dept.

Grouping is helpful at the time of generating reports.

Now, whenever you pay salary to an individual’s account grouped under Accounts Dept. Salary, the report
for Accounts Department Salary will display sum of salary paid.

You will learn about reports in later sections.

You can Alter a group in same way as ledger.

To delete a sub-group, you must delete all the ledgers where you have used that group. Only then you can
delete a group.