Lesson 19 of 20

Common mistakes in Tally and how to fix them

Tally will happily accept a wrong entry as long as it balances. The skill is in noticing, and nearly every mistake leaves a sign in the reports.

Mistakes in masters

1. Ledger under the wrong group. Sign: an expense appearing in the Balance Sheet, or an asset in the Profit and Loss Account. Fix: Alter > Ledger and change "Under". See groups and ledgers.
2. Duplicate ledgers for the same party or expense. Sign: two similar names in Chart of Accounts, each with part of the balance. Fix: decide which to keep, alter the vouchers of the other to use it, then delete the empty one.
3. Opening balances that do not agree. Sign: "Difference in opening balances" in the Balance Sheet. Fix: compare each ledger's opening balance and side with last year's closing balance sheet.
4. Party without state or GSTIN. Sign: wrong tax on invoices; errors in GST reports. Fix: alter the party ledger.
5. Stock item without unit, HSN or rate. Fix: alter the item. See stock items.

Mistakes in vouchers

6. Wrong date. Tally keeps the last date used. Sign: today's entries missing from today's Day Book. Fix: open the voucher, press F2, correct. Habit: press F2 before every voucher.
7. Wrong voucher type. A supplier payment entered as a purchase, or a customer receipt entered as a sale. Sign: purchases or sales too high and the party still showing as unpaid. Fix: delete and re-enter as the correct type. See voucher types.
8. Debit and credit reversed in a contra or journal. Sign: bank balance moving the wrong way. Fix: open the voucher and swap the sides.
9. Wrong party chosen from the list. Sign: one party's ledger shows an unknown bill and another's shows nothing. Fix: alter the voucher.
10. Same bill entered twice. Sign: supplier balance higher than their statement. Fix: search the ledger for the invoice number; delete the duplicate. Habit: always enter the supplier invoice number.
11. Amount mistyped, such as 54,000 for 45,000. Sign: balance differs from the party's statement. Fix: alter. Tip: a difference divisible by 9 often means two digits were swapped.
12. Tax included in the rate and then added again. Sign: invoice total higher than the paper bill. Fix: correct the rate.
13. No bill reference on receipts and payments. Sign: Outstandings showing paid bills as pending, with "On Account" amounts. Fix: alter the voucher and tag it against the bill.

Signs in the reports

14. Negative cash. Cash in hand cannot be less than nothing. Cause: a receipt or a withdrawal from bank not entered, or a payment entered under Cash that went through the bank. Find the first day the balance turns negative in the Cash Book and look at the days before it.
15. Negative stock. Cause: a sale entered before its purchase, or the wrong item chosen. Find it in Stock Summary and drill into the item.
16. Bank balance not matching the statement after reconciliation. Cause: charges, interest or direct credits not entered, or a wrong amount.
17. Suspense balance left for months. Whatever was parked there needs a decision.
18. GST reports listing vouchers with errors. Open each from the report and supply the missing detail.

Mistakes of habit

19. No narration. A year later nobody can tell what an entry was. Write who, what and for which period.
20. No backup. See backup and restore.

How to find a mistake

Work from the sign to the cause.

1. Start from the report that looks wrong, for example a supplier's balance.
2. Open that ledger and compare it line by line with the outside document: the supplier's statement, the bank statement, the bills in the file.
3. Tick what agrees. What remains unticked on either side is the error.
4. Drill into the voucher with Enter and correct it.

The find function (Alt+F) searches masters and transactions for a name, number or amount you type, which helps when you remember a bill number but not where it went.

Alter, cancel or delete?

• Alter when the voucher is right in kind but wrong in a detail. The voucher number is kept.
• Cancel (Alt+X) when a numbered document, such as a sales invoice, was made in error. The number stays in the series, marked cancelled, with no accounting effect.
• Delete (Alt+D) when the voucher should never have existed and its number does not matter. Avoid deleting invoices that have been issued.

If the edit log is in use, every alteration and deletion is recorded with the user and time. Correct openly; do not try to hide a mistake.

Prevention

• Enter from the document, not from memory, and tick the document when done.
• Check the Day Book at the end of each day.
• Reconcile banks monthly and cash daily.
• Read the Trial Balance once a month, line by line.
• Ask before guessing a ledger or a tax treatment. A question takes a minute; an untangled mistake takes an afternoon.

Questions learners ask

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An independent learning site. Tally and TallyPrime are trademarks of Tally Solutions Private Limited. This site is not connected with, approved by or paid by Tally Solutions, and uses none of its logos, screens or course material. Keys and menu paths were checked against Tally's own help site on 12 November 2026; the software changes with each release, so if your screen differs, follow Tally's help (press Ctrl+F1). Tax treatment in the examples is for learning only: ask your accountant.