Sahaya · Switching guide

Move your business to Sahaya — in five steps.

Coming from Tally, Busy, Marg, Zoho, or plain Excel? This guide takes you from your current setup to running your whole business — books, GST, team, stock, bills — on Sahaya. Most businesses finish in under a week, with about one working day of actual effort.

This page is the map. Each person on your team also gets their own detailed guide — jump to the guide list and forward theirs on WhatsApp.

Set up your company

Who does this: the owner · Time: about 15 minutes

Go to app.sahayaos.com and sign up with your email.
The setup wizard asks what kind of business you run — trading, manufacturing, retail, services, restaurant, or professional practice. Pick the closest one; it decides your sensible defaults.
Enter your GSTIN. Sahaya fetches your registered company details automatically — no form-filling.
Choose which modules you want switched on — Money is on for everyone; add People (attendance, HR), Stock (inventory, purchase orders), and others as you need them. You can turn any module on or off later from Settings.

Already done for you

Sahaya creates your complete chart of accounts automatically — 140+ standard ledgers in the format Indian CAs expect (Schedule III). You don't build ledger groups from scratch like in Tally. Your bookkeeper can add custom ledgers any time.

Bring your data across

Who does this: your bookkeeper (or Sahaya support, free) · Time: about half a day

Bring in this financial year's data (from 1 April onwards) plus your closing balances. That way the whole year — including every GST filing — lives in one place. Your old software stays installed as a read-only archive for anything older.

Coming from Tally? One installer does everything

In Sahaya, open Settings → Tally Sync and run the one-click installer on the computer that runs Tally.
Over its first few runs the agent pulls, all by itself: your whole financial year's vouchers (from 1 April, month by month), your opening balances (the closing trial balance as of 31 March), and your item list (names, HSN codes, GST rates). Customers and suppliers are created from the vouchers as they arrive.
From then on, every new voucher posted in Tally lands in Sahaya within minutes. No file exports, nothing typed twice.

File imports — for non-Tally sources (Busy, Marg, Zoho, Excel)

Parties. Export your customer and supplier list, upload it at Counterparties → Import. Names, GSTINs, PANs, phone numbers, and payment terms all come across.
Items. Export your item list, upload at Items → Import — HSN codes, GST rates, and units included.
Opening balances. Export your trial balance, upload at Settings → Opening balances. Any ledger Sahaya doesn't recognise is created automatically.
This year's transactions. Export ledger statements and upload at Imports. Sahaya recognises Tally, Busy, and Marg export formats automatically and rebuilds them as proper balanced entries.

During the switchover

Because the agent keeps syncing, your bookkeeper can keep working in Tally while everyone else already works in Sahaya — nothing gets lost in the handover weeks. The sync page shows how far back your history reaches; it turns green when the full year is in.

Don't want to do this yourself?

Send us your Tally backup or exports and we'll do the whole import for you, free, usually within a day. That's the zero-effort path.

Check the numbers match

Who does this: bookkeeper, with your CA if you like · Time: about an hour

Open the Trial Balance in Sahaya and the same report in your old software, for the same date. The totals should match to the rupee.
Run the built-in health check. Sahaya automatically flags anything imported data commonly gets wrong — missing GSTINs, unbalanced vouchers, party details that need attention — and tells you how to fix each one.
Spot-check five parties you know well: their outstanding balance in Sahaya should match what your old software says they owe or are owed.

Why this matters

One matching trial balance is your proof the migration is complete. After this, every report — P&L, balance sheet, GST returns — is built on numbers you've verified.

Bring in your team

Who does this: the owner · Time: about 15 minutes

Go to Settings → Team. You can invite people by email, or — simpler — create a join link for each role and share it on WhatsApp. Anyone who opens the link picks a password and lands straight inside your company. No email verification, no back-and-forth.

Your bookkeeper

Invite as · Bookkeeper

Lands in Tally mode automatically — the same keyboard-first voucher screens and F-key shortcuts their hands already know. Zero retraining on day one.

Their guide →

Your CA or auditor

Invite as · External CA / Auditor

Gets read-only access to your books and every report, and can sign off the period close. They stop asking you to email Tally backups.

Their guide →

HR / attendance in-charge

Invite as · Admin (People module)

Manages attendance, leave, and the employee list. Staff punch in from their phones.

Their guide →

Stock / purchase in-charge

Invite as · Admin (Stock module)

Runs items, warehouses, purchase orders, and goods receipts. Stock levels and valuation update as bills post.

Their guide →

Field staff & shop staff

No login needed

Print the upload QR code and stick it at the counter. Anyone can scan it and photograph a bill — it lands in your inbox, already read and sorted.

Employees

Invite as · Employee

See only their own things — attendance, leave requests. Nothing from the books.

Work in Sahaya from day one

Who does this: everyone · from the cut-over date onwards, every new entry goes into Sahaya only

Daily

Task	How it works in Sahaya
Entering vouchers	Bookkeeper works in Tally mode — sales, purchase, payment, receipt, journal, contra, all on F-keys, posted instantly.
Purchase bills	Nobody types them. WhatsApp a photo to your Sahaya number, scan the QR code, or forward the email — Sahaya reads the bill, fills in the entry, and queues it for a one-tap approval.
Sales invoices	Create in Sahaya with GST computed automatically; e-invoice (IRN) files are generated for you where turnover requires them.

Weekly

Task	How it works in Sahaya
Bank reconciliation	Upload the bank statement; Sahaya matches entries automatically and shows only the handful it couldn't.
Collections	The aging report shows who owes what; polite WhatsApp payment reminders go out on a schedule you control.

Monthly

Task	How it works in Sahaya
GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B	Computed from your books automatically — no separate workings. Download the return file and upload it on the GST portal.
ITC reconciliation	Upload your GSTR-2B; Sahaya matches it against your purchase bills and explains every mismatch in plain language.
Closing the month	Lock the period so nothing changes behind your back; your CA reviews and signs off from their own login.

✓

When can you stop opening Tally?

When every box below is ticked, your old software's job is done. Keep it installed for old-year lookups — but stop entering anything new into it from your cut-over date. Running both in parallel for more than a couple of weeks is where migrations die.

Trial balance in Sahaya matches the old system, and the health check shows no open issues.
Bookkeeper has posted a full day's vouchers in Sahaya without touching the old system.
One bank statement uploaded and reconciled.
One month's GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B prepared from Sahaya and filed.
Your CA has logged in and reviewed the books directly.

Honest fine print

Payroll (salary runs, PF/ESI) is coming soon — until then keep your current payroll process. E-invoice and e-way bill files are generated by Sahaya ready-to-upload; today you upload them on the government portal yourself, direct submission is on the way.

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Hand each person their own guide

Don't make your bookkeeper read the owner's sections. Forward each link on WhatsApp — every guide is detailed, screen-by-screen, and written for that person's job: