How to move your books out of Tally
For anyone changing software and worried about the years already in there.
The fear that keeps most businesses on software they have outgrown is not the new software - it is the years of books already in the old one. Your Tally data is exportable, the export is complete, and the migration can be checked figure by figure before you trust it. Here is how to do it without holding your breath.
Export the company from Tally
Tally exports a whole company as XML, and that file contains the masters and the vouchers - not a summary. This is Tally's own feature and needs nothing extra installed.
- 1Open the company in Tally.
- 2Go to the export option and choose XML as the format.
- 3Set the period to cover everything you want - you can export several financial years.
- 4Export masters and vouchers, and note where the file is written.
- 5Keep that file. It is your evidence, and you may want to import it more than once.
What comes across, and what does not
Ledgers, groups, stock items, units and parties come across, as do the vouchers - sales, purchases, payments, receipts, journals, contras, notes and returns - with their dates, numbers, narrations and line items.
What does not come across is anything specific to Tally as a program: TDL customisations, print formats you configured, user setups and any add-on's own data. Those have to be set up again in whatever you move to, and it is worth listing them before you start rather than discovering them in week two.
When in the year to switch
The clean answer is the start of a financial year: closing balances become opening balances and there is one date where responsibility passes. It is also the answer that means waiting, which is why most businesses do not do it.
Switching mid-year works if the software can take the past years too. Bring in the completed years and the current year to date, then check the current year's figures against Tally on the same date before you stop entering in Tally. Run both for a fortnight if the business is large enough to justify it.
Check the migration - do not trust it
A migration that ran without an error is not a migration that is correct. Take Tally's own Trial Balance for a date, take the new software's for the same date, and compare them line by line. Do the same for the stock summary and for the party outstanding list.
If the totals agree and a spot-check of individual party balances agrees, you have evidence. If they do not, you have found the problem while you still have both systems, which is exactly when you want to find it.
- Trial Balance on a fixed date, both systems.
- Closing stock value and quantity for the same date.
- Outstanding by party - the total, and a handful of individual balances.
- A few vouchers picked at random, opened in both.
How Zembook handles it
Zembook imports Tally's XML export directly - masters, all voucher types, and several past financial years from one file. Re-running the same import does not duplicate anything, because vouchers are matched on Tally's own internal identity rather than on the voucher number, which is not unique in Tally.
That last property is what makes the import safe to repeat: if something looked wrong, you can fix it and import the same file again rather than starting from an empty company.
Reviewed August 2026. This describes general GST practice and is not tax advice. Thresholds, due dates and rules change by notification, and several vary by state — confirm anything that decides a filing on gst.gov.in or with your accountant.
Questions people ask
- Will I lose my old years if I move?
- No, on two counts. The Tally export can contain several past financial years, and your original Tally data stays exactly where it is - moving is a copy, not a transfer. Keep the old installation until you are satisfied.
- How long does the migration take?
- The import itself is minutes for an ordinary company. The checking is what takes the time, and it is the part worth doing properly - budget an afternoon for comparing figures rather than an afternoon for the import.
- What if the import fails halfway?
- In Zembook, run it again into the same company: masters that already arrived are matched by name and updated rather than duplicated. A migration that stops partway used to abandon the entire year, which is a failure mode worth asking any vendor about.
Zembook does this part for you
Move your books out of Tally without re-entering them. Zembook imports Tally's own XML export - masters, every voucher type, and several past financial years from one file - and re-importing changes nothing instead of duplicating it.