Devdas Bhagat wrote:
SMEs like Tally because they _can_ manipulate accounts without a trace.
Yes !!!! That's why I like Tally. And I still use the DOS console
version (ver 4.5) because it is very fast. I am a self employed guy who
likes GNU/Linux but still has to use dosemu because a lot of apps that I
use for my office work are under DOS. And so are with 90% of the
business acquaintances that I know in my field.
I'll tell you another thing with Tally 4.5. There is no automatic
Closing Stock, you have to manually feed the data. Stocks are not
automatically tracked as there is no support for it in this version.
Later versions of Tally has stock tracking support, but I refuse to use
it. I use my own system developed under Foxpro to track my stocks. So, I
am always aware about my correct stock position at any given time. But
the financial accounting is maintained using Tally, and I enter the
Closing stock figures manually, which of course can be easily manipulated.
Warning : This is helpful only for small/medium business guys like me
who look after their own accounting.
I always wanted to develop an app _similar_ to Tally 4.5 under
GNU/Linux. The best thing is that it uses it own way of keeping the
data. No need of external databases. That makes it very fast ( I am sure
there will counter arguments to this saying that external DBMS is also
fast, etc..... but my point is that I can carry my complete 10 years of
data + the app (tally 4.5) within 4-5 MB zip file). In fact, if you
take into consideration basic files to run DOS (command.com io.sys
msdos.sys + a few utilities ) you can carry your whole accounting system
within 7-8 MB zip file. Which is actually what I do. I carry the whole
DOS system, Foxpro (zipped - 12 MB) , Tally, and my data on a USB drive,
then start Linux from a live CD (Slax Live CD) then unzip my whole DOS
system on ramdisk, run dosemu. At the end of the day, I update my USB
drive with new data and thats it. Isn't that fun !!! In fact I have
made a few start and stop scripts which do the necessary preparation of
unzipping, linking, etc. routine stuff that I have to do everyday when
starting/stopping the system. BTW, I have a 260 MB hard disk on my
office system. Yes, its 260 MB - 60 % free space.
If we want to make GNU/Linux more popular with masses, we need something
like Tally. Period.
Rajen.
P.S.: I have seen an app developed by an independent developer which has
the *exact* interface like Tally 4.5 and has full accounting system with
stock support, lan and concurrent multiple access. I couldn't find how
the data is stored, but I will find it and let you know.
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