A plain walkthrough for tally prime invoice format setting: what to switch on first, the order of the steps, and the two settings that cause most of the problems people run into afterwards.
Generating an e-invoice and IRN
E-invoicing applies above a turnover threshold that has been lowered in stages since it was introduced — check the current notification for whether it applies to you before setting any of this up.
- Enable e-invoicing in the company features screen — F11 — inside the GST details, and enter the credentials the system needs to reach the invoice registration portal.
- Make sure your masters are complete: GSTIN and state on every party, HSN on every item. The portal rejects incomplete payloads, and the rejection message is rarely as specific as you would like.
- Raise the sales voucher as normal.
- On accepting the voucher, choose to generate the e-invoice. The IRN and the signed QR code come back from the portal and attach to the invoice.
- Print or share the invoice — it must carry the QR code and IRN.
- If generation fails, the usual causes are a missing HSN, an invalid GSTIN, a place-of-supply mismatch, or a duplicate invoice number.
An e-invoice cannot be edited once registered. Corrections are made by cancelling within the permitted window, or by credit note afterwards — which is a good reason to check the voucher before generating.
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 An out-of-date installation does not announce itself; it produces a file the portal rejects, or one it accepts with figures in the wrong column.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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Do I need to install anything?
No. It runs in a browser, on a laptop, desktop or phone, so there is nothing to install, nothing to update and nothing tied to one machine. If the office computer dies, you sign in from another one and everything is there.
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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