1. Choose your cut-over date​

Pick a clean date to start in Books, usually the first day of a month or of the financial year. You will bring masters and opening balances as at that date, and optionally the vouchers of the current year.

2. Export from Tally​

From Tally Prime or ERP 9, export as XML:

• Masters: groups, ledgers (including customers and vendors with their GSTINs), stock items and godowns.
• Vouchers: sales, purchase, receipt, payment, journal and contra vouchers, and credit and debit notes, for the period you want to bring across.

3. Prepare Books​

Before importing, set up the basics in Books:

1. Add each GST registration with its state and branch.
2. Review the chart of accounts. Tally's primary groups are mapped to Books account groups during the import.
3. Set the opening balance date.

4. Upload, map and dry run​

Open Admin, Data migration, choose Tally as the source and upload the XML. Thoshika recognises the Tally format and maps it.

Then run a dry run. The whole import runs with all of Books' rules, including GST recalculated per line, and is then rolled back. You get a report of any rows that would be rejected and why, for example a ledger with an invalid GSTIN or a voucher that refers to a missing ledger. Fix them in Tally or in the file, and run the dry run again until it is clean.

5. Import and check​

Run the import. The report shows what was created, updated, skipped and rejected, the trial balance totals, and the amount left in opening balance equity. When ledger, party and stock openings agree, that amount is zero.

Then compare with Tally:

• the trial balance as at the cut-over date;
• outstanding receivables and payables, bill by bill;
• stock quantities and values by godown;
• GST payable and input credit for the last period.

If something went wrong, you can roll back the whole import: invoices and payments are voided and journals reversed. Re-running the same file later updates masters and skips documents already posted, so nothing is duplicated.

6. Running both for a while​

Some companies keep Tally in use during a transition, for example for a branch that moves later. The Integration Hub has a beta Tally connector that can send vouchers from Thoshika to Tally through the Thoshika Bridge, a small agent that runs on your office network next to Tally. It is built on Tally's published XML format and has not yet been tested against live Tally installations, so check the first vouchers carefully. Thoshika is not affiliated with Tally Solutions.

For the full list of what the migration tool handles, see the data migration guide and the Books guide.

Rules as dated data​

Statutory rates change often: a budget changes the tax slabs, a state revises professional tax, a notification changes the labour welfare fund. In Thoshika, rates and slabs are rows in tables with an effective date. When a rate changes, a payroll administrator adds a new version from the date it applies. The previous version closes the day before.

Payslips that were already finalised keep the rates they were calculated with, so earlier months still reconcile with what was paid and filed.

Payroll​

The India country pack covers the financial year 2026-27:

• Provident fund: employee and employer EPF, EPS and EDLI on PF wages, with the wage ceiling or full wages where opted, and VPF.
• ESI: coverage by the monthly wage rate, which continues for the rest of the contribution period once it applies.
• Professional tax and LWF: slabs for each state, decided by where the employee works, including February amounts and half-yearly deductions where a state uses them.
• Income tax: old and new regimes. Tax is projected for the whole year and re-projected every month, so a bonus, an arrear or a change in declarations is spread over the remaining months rather than landing in one.
• Wage rules: salary structures warn when basic and DA fall below half of pay, under the Code on Wages, or below the state minimum wage.

The outputs are what payroll teams file and upload: the ECR file, the ESIC contribution file, professional tax and LWF registers, Form 24Q data and Form 16 Part B, and bank transfer files.

One caution we give every customer: always check statutory figures with your tax adviser before filing, especially after a budget or state notification.

GST and TDS in Books​

Books is built around GST registrations. A company can hold one GSTIN per state, each with its own branch and invoice series, and every return is prepared per GSTIN.

• GST is calculated per line and rounded as the rules require.
• GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B are prepared from posted documents, with the JSON for upload.
• GSTR-2B is imported and matched against purchase bills, so you can decide which input credit to claim and which vendors to follow up.
• E-invoice and e-way bill data are exported for the government portals. The IRN, signed QR code and e-way bill number are imported back and printed on the invoice.
• TDS is applied by section and threshold on bills and payments, with Form 26Q and 27Q data and Form 16A certificates. TCS is supported where it applies.

Why it matters​

Because payroll and accounts run on the same platform, the payroll journal posts to Books by cost centre, and the PF, ESI, PT and TDS liabilities land in the right ledger accounts. There is no export, import or re-keying between the two.

Read more on our Why Thoshika page, or in the People and Books guides.

The problem we set out to solve​

A growing Indian company typically runs payroll in one product, accounts in another, sales in a third, and fills the gaps with spreadsheets. Each product has its own login, its own list of employees or customers, and its own idea of what a branch or a GSTIN is. Month-end becomes the job of reconciling them.

Most of these products were also built for another market and adapted for India later. Professional tax, labour welfare fund, Form 24Q, GSTR-2B reconciliation or an MCA filing calendar are added on, if they are there at all.

What Thoshika is​

One platform. Every app shares the same directory of people, the same customers, vendors and items, the same roles and the same approval inbox. A person has one identity and can belong to several companies, with different roles in each.

India first. People runs Indian payroll with PF, ESI, professional tax, LWF and TDS under both tax regimes, and produces the ECR, ESIC, 24Q and Form 16 outputs. Books keeps GST per state registration, prepares GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B, and handles TDS and TCS on business payments. Statutory rates are kept as dated data, so a budget change is a new version from a date rather than a code change.

Apps that work together. An accepted quote in CRM becomes an invoice in Books. Approved timesheets in Projects become billable hours. Payroll posts its journal to the ledger by cost centre. Purchase orders in Procurement are matched against bills.

Web and mobile. The Thoshika app for Android and iOS has the same app switcher as the web. Employees check in, apply for leave, download payslips and approve requests from the phone.

The apps​

The 22 apps fall into five groups:

• People and work: People, Sangam, Workplace, Forms and Workflows, Projects, Documents and e-sign.
• Finance and governance: Books, Company Compliance, Procurement, Analytics.
• Customers: CRM, Marketing, Support, Bookings, POS and Retail.
• Operations: Inventory and Warehouse, Manufacturing, Maintenance and Quality, Distribution and Dealers, Field Service.
• IT: IT Service Management, Remote.

You can start with one app and add others as you go, or take all of them as Thoshika One.

What comes next​

Each app has a published list of what it does today and what is on its roadmap. We will write here as new work ships. If you would like to see Thoshika with your own company's processes, write to us.