Many businesses still rely on Tally for their accounting needs. During a recent discussion with our valued customer, Precihole, we explored their initial reluctance to transition to a more advanced accounting software like ours. This pushback stemmed from the influence of their peers, many of whom used Tally.

Here’s why you should break this loop of habit and switch to a better and cost-effective ERP software - ERPNext. Over the years, ERPNext has remained committed to assisting numerous small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in enhancing their business operations for greater productivity.

→ A common platform for all business processes

While Tally primarily focuses on accounting and helps record business data, create ledgers, and provide an overview of your finances, ERPNext takes it a step further. ERPNext not only does these tasks better but also integrates all your core business processes seamlessly.

The visibility into accounting modules, Stock, HR, CRM, Quality goals, and more simplifies the process of streamlining your business operations. This way, teams can save themselves from juggling between multiple software.

ERPNext's Chart of Accounts tab offers a cleaner way to manage your finances. Navigating through the charts of accounts makes it effortless to map, track, and analyze your financial transactions while allowing you to customize specific reports to aid in making informed decisions.

→ Better production planning capabilities

In the recent observations and business talks with our implementation partners, we have identified that more and more client needs are outgrowing Tally’s offering. And this is particularly true with the manufacturing businesses. When it comes to managing production and inventory, ERPNext seals the deal with its advanced offering of managing multi-level inventory and tracking WIP and costing levels.

In addition, the quality inspection ensures accurate stock movements by associating transactions, specifying sample sizes, recording measurements, and deciding on item acceptance or rejection.

→ Comprehensive fixed asset management

ERPNext offers a comprehensive fixed asset management solution covering every asset lifecycle aspect. But what’s better than Tally is the custom report assistance one can pull anytime and make decisions accordingly. ERPNext makes it easy to maintain detailed reports in asset ledgers, ensuring you have a comprehensive and organized record of your assets' history and financial data.

→ More reliable HRMS and Payroll support

The HRMS module, now widely known as Frappe HR, is a fully featured HR and Payroll app that can be installed with ERPNext. With this versatile app, you can handle everything from recruitment and onboarding to payroll, taxes, and complete employee lifecycle management.

Our customers expressed a need for a more robust payroll solution, something they felt was lacking in Tally. With the feature for multi-currency payroll and many seamless bank integrations, we have made salary processing easier on our app. Check out the app here.

And now, with our new $50, ERPNext’s SLA-bound support and product warranty is extended to Frappe HR without any extra cost. Read up on this blog to get more insights into the pricing plan.

Changing the way how Rio Innobev manages its business

Rio Innobev is a prominent and rapidly expanding player in the beverage sector. Established in 2011, they have now spread their business across 50+ towns and cities across 3 Indian States. They sold around 12 million cans in 2022 and managed the growth through 200+ distributors and 37000 retailers.

While their business was flourishing, they relied on outdated and unstable business software and needed urgent assistance.

How did Rio’s business management softwares look before ERPNext?

Rio’s business processes were manual and disintegrated. They were using Tally for finance, excel sheets for payroll, and inventory management. They were also managing tertiary sales in a different app to track ~200 sales staff. This fragmented approach to managing operations led to a time-consuming workflow, ultimately impacting their overall efficient.

Rio was in search of a solution to rescue itself from these unstable systems and unify their operations into a seamless and efficient framework.

How did ERPNext perfectly fit into their larger picture?

After receiving a recommendation from a trusted business associate and thoroughly assessing ERPNext’s advantages, Rio made the pivotal decision to partner with us for their ERP needs. With the dedicated support of our Bronze Implementation Partners - Indiba Business Solutions, Rio successfully transformed their business operations journey.

They found several compelling factors that positively influenced their decision, including:

Embracing change often comes with initial hesitations, and Rio was no exception, especially when it came to entrusting their data to the cloud. However, after taking the time to appreciate the benefits, they are now delighted with the reliability of Frappe Cloud, which ensures zero downtime and the convenience of one-click updates.

Immediate benefits

Integrated System 💻

Rio successfully streamlined the 4 key modules of their business: finance, payroll, inventory, and sales. In contrast to their earlier approach of handling these aspects through disparate sources, which posed challenges for the accounting team, they have now achieved a more efficient and integrated system. This integration ensures that data flows seamlessly across departments, reducing manual errors and saving time for the accounting team. The improved efficiency allows them to focus on more strategic tasks and decision-making, ultimately contributing to the overall growth and success of the company. Today, all reports related to raw materials, packaging materials, and finished goods are conveniently accessible on a single page, starkly contrasting to the predefined separate reports previously scattered across Tally and Excel spreadsheets.

Stock WIP visibility 📦

Before ERPNext, tracking and managing stock levels, especially Work-in-Progress (WIP), was time-consuming and relied on manual communication. Mr. Prem Khorke, responsible for finance, had to coordinate with the dispatch team and await daily email updates to calculate closing stock figures. This manual process consumed valuable time and introduced the potential for errors.

With the implementation of ERPNext, this workflow has been streamlined. Stock updates, including WIP, are now automated and instantly visible in real time. This transformation has empowered the team with accurate and up-to-date information, enabling them to make more informed decisions and operate with greater efficiency.

Structured Bill of Materials and Product Costing📄

In the past, Mr. Khorke had to manually crunch the numbers to find consumption using a formula on Tally, which involved summing up opening stock, purchases, and subtracting closing stock to determine consumption. He also had a rough idea that the cost of material was 50% and tried to match the same and keep things in check accordingly. But now, with ERPNext, he has a clear and detailed picture of the actual material usage and costs. This includes factoring in scrap and process losses and providing valuable insights to better understand and manage any losses.

Quality control is now a part of the core process within the system♻️

In ERPNext, there is clear visibility of audit trails, and the team can now effortlessly trace the history of every interaction with their receipts. Whether it's checking who retrieved a particular receipt or when it was last accessed, this visibility ensures accountability and accuracy in their financial processes.

In a remarkably short span of just over 4 months, Rio made a decisive shift by entirely phasing out Tally from their operations. What's truly remarkable is that this transformation was achieved without the need for a single customization. ERPNext has seamlessly enabled its core operations and analytical decision-making processes to become an integral part of its organizational DNA.

With all its business processes streamlined and optimized, Rio is now set on a path toward sustainable growth, equipped with the tools and insights needed to propel their business forward.

The curious case of Precihole Sports and ERPNext

Precihole Sports, established in 2012, is India’s best air gun manufacturer. Precihole Sports strives to bring world-class air guns and accessories to the Indian shooting fraternity at a reasonable and affordable cost. And while they were on this quest, they decided to migrate their operations to ERPNext in 2021.

“Why ERPNext?” - The first question that Ms. Shalaka Joshi, Manager for Finance and Audit from Precihole, asked her senior. Back then, she had quite a soft spot for Tally and didn’t really want to make the switch. However, fast forward to just 2 years later today, everything has changed. After a successful and smooth transition to ERPNext, it has become their go-to tool for everything business.

During Frappeverse 2023, we got a chance to catch up with Ms Joshi again, and she answered the question, “Why ERPNext?” herself.

→ The best part about using the accounting module for Ms. Joshi turned out to be the custom reports that can be generated according to the audit requirements without relying on expert assistance.

→ The awesome bar (search bar on ERPNext) is her go-to assistant to jump to any reports or documents, making her job easy and quick.

→ The fixed asset register feels like a reasonable upgrade from Tally with better management and the desired report extraction.

→ With the flexibility to set up workflows, things like approval for documents are being kept in check while reducing the risk of errors.

→ Moreover, the ability to customize ERPNext using Frappe Framework has made things even easier for them, like building custom features.

She also reflected back when the team at Precihole was considering ERPNext as an option, and they had also compared it to SAP B1. ERPNext stood out with its cost-effectiveness and user-friendly coding platform. In contrast, hosting on SAP B1 was pricier, and creating custom reports proved to be quite challenging. Their team had to coordinate with the SAP implementation team to create even simple reports, which turned out to be quite time-consuming.

ERPNext made the final cut, and today 2 years down the lane, they are enabling a positive impact on Precihole’s business to bring in some efficiency while saving their valuable time.

Why should you replace Tally with ERPNext?

ERPNext stands out as a user-friendly, cost-effective, and open-source ERP software that’s better than Tally in terms of affordability, scalability, seamless integrations, and excellent presentation of essential business modules.

ERPNext ensures comprehensive coverage of the application of taxes on the invoices, e-invoices (as per statutory needs), and reports needed for the filling of the return with the tax authority. ERPNext ensure that businesses don’t have to make any compromise with statutory requirements when migrating to ERPNext.

Let ERPNext give your business a fresh boost, transforming the way you operate and keeping you at the forefront of your industry. Our trusted Frappe implementation partners handle the timeline and expertise needed for ERPNext implementation, ensuring a smooth transition. Plus, they can assist you in adding custom features tailored to your business needs. What's more, when using ERPNext, you can even host your website on Frappe Cloud, making server setup hassle-free. Learn more about our hosting options right here.

Since we are open-source, our code is public, allowing you to create requests for new features and also do away with the licensing fees. So now, if you are using Tally and have slowly started to outgrow its solutions, it might be the right time to give ERPNext a try and see the difference for yourself.