A plain walkthrough for gst in tally prime: what to switch on first, the order of the steps, and the two settings that cause most of the problems people run into afterwards.
Doing this step by step
The sequence below assumes GST is already enabled on the company and your masters carry HSN codes and rates.
- Confirm GST is enabled in the company features screen (F11) and that your GSTIN, state and registration type are entered.
- Confirm the tax ledgers exist under Duties & Taxes with the correct tax type on each.
- Confirm each party ledger carries a GSTIN and — critically — a state, since that decides the tax split.
- Confirm each stock item carries an HSN/SAC and a rate.
- Record the transaction from the vouchers screen, checking the place of supply before you accept it.
- Open the GST reports and clear anything listed as uncertain or incomplete before the month closes.
Almost every GST problem in a ledger-based system traces back to a master that is missing a state, an HSN or a rate. Fix the master, not the voucher.
On TallyPrime specifically
TallyPrime reorganised how you move around the product rather than how the accounting works. The go-to search, the ability to change a report's view without leaving it, and the rework of the data-entry screens mean most older instructions give you the right idea and the wrong keystrokes.
So when following a guide written for the previous generation, follow the intent rather than the key sequence: the ledger still needs the same fields, the invoice still needs the same content, and the exceptions list in the GST report is still where the return actually gets fixed.
What is worth checking on any current release is the compliance side rather than the interface — whether your installation is up to date for the return formats and the e-invoicing schema in force. An out-of-date installation does not announce itself; it produces a file the portal rejects, or one it accepts with figures in the wrong column.
Data from the earlier generation migrates, but migration is a one-way step and worth doing from a backup you have verified rather than from the live company data.
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.
The same job, without the setup
In Billixo, the equivalent of everything above is: enter your GSTIN and state once at signup, put the HSN on a product when you create it, and select the customer when you bill.
The tax heads are not ledgers you create — they are derived from the place of supply against your registration state, every time, with no dropdown to get wrong. The GST summaries are a report you download rather than a screen you have to clear.
You can test that claim in about ten minutes on the free plan without installing anything. Start free now, or open the demo.
Invoice numbering: one unbroken series per year
The invoice number has to be consecutive, unique within the financial year, and no more than sixteen characters of letters, numbers, slashes and hyphens. Gaps invite questions. Duplicates cause them.
This is the single most common reason a spreadsheet-based billing setup fails an audit: two people billing on two machines, both starting from the last number they remember. A system that issues the number centrally cannot make that mistake.
The series restarts on 1 April, and Billixo restarts it for you rather than waiting to be told.
Credit notes, debit notes, and fixing a wrong invoice
An issued tax invoice is not something to edit. If the value was too high, or goods came back, the correction is a credit note that references the original invoice. If it was too low, a debit note. Both carry their own numbers and both appear in your return.
There is a deadline on the credit note that matters: the adjustment has to be declared by the return for the relevant month of the following financial year, or by the annual return, whichever comes first. Past that, the note exists commercially but the tax cannot be adjusted.
Software that lets you quietly retype an invoice raised last month is not doing you a favour.
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.
A note for accountants and CAs
If you are the person who has to make sense of a client’s billing at the end of the month, what you need from their software is narrow and specific: a complete outward supply summary, correct place-of-supply treatment, HSN present on every line, and an export you can open without repair.
Billixo produces GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B summaries and exports to CSV, Excel and JSON. Client-side, the invoice fields cannot be skipped, which removes the category of problem where the data was never captured in the first place.
What "free" means here, exactly
The Free plan costs nothing, needs no card, and has no expiry date. It is not a trial that turns into a bill; it is a plan you can run a small business on indefinitely.
What it gives you:
- Real GST invoices with the full Rule 46 field set
- Customers and products, with HSN/SAC held against each
- A daily and monthly invoice allowance, generous enough for a small operation
- One login
- Export of your own data, whenever you want it
What it does not give you:
- A watermark-free PDF
- GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B export
- The AI features — bill scanning, HSN lookup, the assistant
- Extra team logins, bulk import, recurring invoices and reminders
Every new account also gets the full paid feature set for its first 14 days, so you can see what the ceiling looks like before deciding whether you need it. When that ends nothing is charged and nothing is deleted — the account simply settles onto Free.
Start free now — it takes an email address and about a minute.
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
Why is GST not calculating on my invoice?
Nine times out of ten a master is incomplete: the stock item has no rate or no HSN, the party ledger has no state, or the tax ledgers are not set to the right tax type. Because the most specific setting wins, a rate set at item level will also silently override one set at company level.
Why did an inter-state sale come out as CGST and SGST?
The place of supply on the voucher, or the state on the party ledger, does not match. Correct it on the party master rather than on the voucher, otherwise the next invoice to that customer repeats the error.
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.
What happens to my data if I stop paying?
Nothing is deleted. The account settles back onto the Free plan: the paid conveniences switch off, the volume limits return, and every invoice, customer and product you created stays exactly where it is — including the export.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. It is a browser application that adapts to the screen, so the same account works from a desktop at the counter and a phone in the market. There is no separate app to keep in step.
Try it — the demo is the product
There is no sales call and no scheduled demo, because a recorded walkthrough of somebody else’s data tells you nothing about your own. Open an account instead and raise a real invoice for a real customer; it takes about a minute and costs nothing.
Open the software demo → — sign in, or create a free account from the same screen.
See full details on the home page → — features, the AI, pricing and the answers to the usual questions.
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