You can import your Trail Balance and Nominal Ledger directly into Tally by CSV spreadsheet. To do that, click Settings > Import Data and then Import Ledgers – make sure to follow this guidance and ensure that all the requirements are met. The figures and dates here can be found in your previous accounting software or from your accountant.
Things to check before starting
- Header - The import will work with or without a header row (a row at the top with the column names). You may also have additional sub-heading rows, if so these shouldn't cause a problem either. If column one (Nominal Code) doesn't contain a numerical value then that line will be skipped.
- Opening Balances/ Trial Balance - If you're importing a Trial Balance in order to create opening balances then all entries should have the same date for column 3. This will result in a single journal entry with that date containing all of the transactions.
- Nominal Ledger - If you're importing a nominal ledger report then this will result in one journal entry for each date found in the file.
- Creation of nominal codes - If the nominal codes you specify don't already exist in this Tally account then they'll be created for you. If the nominal code does exist but it has a different name, then your existing code in Tally will be renamed to match the name in your file. These will be created as Bank Transaction Types so it is highly recommended that you create the codes first yourself prior to import if this isn't the desired effect.
- Debtors and Creditors - Tally doesn’t allow posting to the debtors and creditors control accounts, if you try to post there then the figures will automatically be posted to a suspense account numbered 9999.
- Ensuring your files balance - The file should balance (that is, the sum of the credit column should equal the sum of the debit column). If your file doesn't balance then we will create an additional journal line posting the difference to the suspense account. The narrative will read "Automatically created balancing entry".
- Reversing this import - If, after importing your file, you find that the data doesn't appear as you expect then you can easily reverse the importing of the file by simply deleting the journal entries that were created. However, you can't undo the changes made to the names of nominal codes or new codes other than by manually editing them.
Fields
Your CSV file needs to contain six columns in this order exactly. We recommend you download the template and copy and paste into the appropriate columns.
- Nominal Code - The numeric code for the nominal code.
- Nominal Name - The name for the nominal code.
- Date - The date for the entry as DD/MM/YYYY.
- Narrative - A comment for the entry.
- Debit - The debit amount.
- Credit - The credit amount.
When you’re ready, click the Choose File button to select the spreadsheet. Click the Preview Import button to be taken to a summery screen to review your data before import, to continue just click Import and your data will be added to Tally.