Getting Started with GST in Tally ERP 9, explained in the order you actually do it. Names of menu items vary by version; the sequence and the settings do not.
Switching GST on and entering your registration details
Nothing else works until this is done, and about half the "GST is not calculating" problems come from it being half-done.
- From the Gateway of Tally, open the company features screen — F11.
- Under the statutory or taxation section, set Enable Goods and Services Tax (GST) to Yes.
- Open the GST details screen when it offers to, and fill in your State, Registration type (Regular or Composition), GSTIN/UIN, and the date the registration applies from.
- Set whether e-invoicing and e-way bill features apply to you. These are separate switches and are easy to miss.
- Accept and save. Now create or edit your tax ledgers — CGST, SGST/UTGST, IGST and cess if it applies — under Duties & Taxes, with the type of duty set to GST and the correct tax type on each.
- On each stock item or sales ledger, set the GST rate and the HSN/SAC code. This is the step people skip, and it is why tax does not compute on the voucher later.
The single most common cause of "no tax on the invoice" is the rate being set at a level that is being overridden somewhere else — company, group, ledger and item can each carry GST details, and the most specific one wins.
On ERP 9 specifically
ERP 9 is the older generation and a great deal of the instructional material online was written for it, which is why its menu paths are the ones most often quoted. The accounting logic is the same; the navigation is not.
The practical issue with staying on it is support rather than capability. GST changes — return tables, HSN digit requirements, the e-invoicing schema — and an installation that is no longer being updated for those changes will quietly stop producing a file the portal accepts. That is discovered at a filing deadline rather than in advance.
So the question worth asking is not whether it still works but whether your release is still being updated for compliance. If it is not, the risk is specific and dated, and it sits on the person filing.
If you are on an old release and intend to stay there, at minimum verify each period that the return data it produces is still in the format currently required, rather than assuming last year's export is this year's.
Keeping both, which is often the right answer
If your accountant works in a desktop ledger and is happy there, you do not have to move them. Plenty of businesses raise invoices in one system and hand a clean summary to a practitioner working in another.
The interface between the two is a file — a GSTR-1 summary, or a CSV of invoices — not a platform commitment. Billixo exports CSV, Excel and JSON, and the export works on the free plan.
Change only the part that is actually costing you evenings.
When this is worth doing differently
None of the above is difficult. It is just a lot of setup that has to stay correct, on a machine that has to stay working, maintained by someone who remembers how it was configured.
That is a reasonable cost for a business with an accountant on staff and a stable office. It is a poor fit for a business where the person billing is also the person selling, and where the office computer is whatever laptop is nearest.
Billixo takes the other approach: the GST details are entered once when you sign up, the tax split is derived from the customer’s state on every invoice with nothing to configure, and there is no installation to maintain. It runs in a browser, and the free plan costs ₹0 with no card.
That is not an argument that one is better. It is an argument that they suit different situations, and it is worth knowing which one you are in.
Reverse charge, exports and the supplies that behave differently
Not every supply is a straightforward taxable sale. Some notified supplies put the tax liability on the recipient rather than the supplier. Exports and supplies to an SEZ can be made under a bond or LUT without payment of tax, or with tax and a refund claimed afterwards. Composition dealers cannot charge tax at all and must say so on the bill.
Each of these changes what the invoice has to say — the reverse charge marking, the LUT reference, the "composition taxable person" declaration. They are not exotic cases; most businesses hit at least one.
The fields are on the invoice in Billixo whether or not you use them, so the day you need one you are not looking for a workaround.
What a GST invoice legally has to carry
Rule 46 of the CGST Rules sets out what a tax invoice must show, and it is a longer list than most invoice templates carry. Getting one field wrong does not usually cost you anything the day you raise it — it costs your customer their input credit months later, which is a harder conversation.
The fields are:
- Your name, address and GSTIN
- A consecutive invoice number, unique within the financial year
- The date of issue
- The customer's name, address and GSTIN where they are registered
- Place of supply, and the state code, for inter-state supplies
- HSN or SAC against every line
- Description, quantity, unit, rate and taxable value per line
- Rate and amount of CGST, SGST/UTGST, IGST and cess, shown separately
- Whether tax is payable on reverse charge
- Signature or digital signature of the supplier or an authorised person
Billixo fills these in from the customer and product records rather than asking you to remember them, which is the only reliable way a busy counter gets them all right every time.
Bill scanning, in practice
The single largest time cost in most small businesses is not raising invoices — it is entering purchases. A photograph of a supplier bill goes in and a structured draft comes out: supplier, GSTIN, line items, rates, tax split and total.
You check it. That is the workflow, and it is deliberate: an extraction you did not read is a liability, not a saving. But checking a filled form takes fifteen seconds and typing one takes three minutes, and that difference compounds over a month of purchases.
Who it is built for
Small and mid-sized Indian businesses that are registered under GST and bill regularly. One person doing everything, or a counter with three people billing at once and an accountant who needs the month to close cleanly.
The design assumption throughout is that whoever raises the invoice is busy and is not a tax specialist. So the tax is computed rather than asked for, the compliance fields are populated rather than presented as questions, and the report the accountant wants is a download rather than a request.
Try it free — the free plan needs no card and does not expire.
Free, and what it costs you instead
Free software usually costs you something that is not money: your data held hostage, an export that does not work, ads inside your invoice, or a "free" tier so narrow it is a demo with a login screen.
The line here is drawn differently. Export works on the free plan — CSV, Excel and JSON — because data you cannot get out is not data you own. The invoice is a real compliant invoice, not a sample. The limits are on volume and on the conveniences, not on whether the thing works.
Start free now. If it does not suit you, take your data with you.
Reliability, backups and getting your data out
Cloud billing software is only as good as its worst day. Two things matter more than any feature list: that your data is backed up somewhere you can reach, and that you can export it in a format something else can read.
Exports here are CSV, Excel and JSON, on every plan including the free one, covering customers, products, invoices and payments. That is the honest test of whether software respects you — not what it promises, but what it lets you take when you leave.
Frequently asked questions
Do the menu paths differ between Tally.ERP 9 and TallyPrime?
The wording does — TallyPrime reorganised the menus and renamed several screens — but the sequence is the same: enable GST on the company, set up tax ledgers, put HSN and rates on masters, record the voucher, then clear the GST reports.
Is there a simpler way to do this?
For many small businesses, yes. Billixo derives the tax split from the customer’s state automatically and needs no ledger setup at all — you enter your GSTIN once and bill. It runs in a browser, and the free plan costs ₹0 with no card.
Can I use both?
Yes, and many businesses do. Raise invoices wherever it is fastest and hand your accountant a clean GSTR-1 summary. The hand-off is a file, not a commitment.
Is my data shared with anyone?
No. It sits in this installation, scoped to your company. AI requests only happen when you explicitly ask for one, and nothing is sent anywhere otherwise.
Is it really free?
Yes. The Free plan is ₹0, needs no card and has no expiry. It has volume limits and leaves out the paid conveniences — watermark-free PDFs, GST return exports, the AI features, extra logins — but the invoices it produces are real GST invoices, and you can export your data from it whenever you like.
Start free, decide later
You do not have to choose a plan to begin. Start on Free, use it for as long as it suits you, and upgrade only when a limit actually gets in your way — never automatically, and never because a countdown ran out.
Open the software demo → — or create the free account from the same page.
Read the full details → on the home page, including pricing and the AI features.
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