Tally Inventory Management: Run This Stock Health Check First

TallyPrime keeps stock inside the same company file as your accounts, so every purchase and sale updates quantity and value together. Setup takes four steps:

Movement Analysis shows which items sell fast and which sit idle. For what idle stock costs and how to book it, see slow moving inventory. The six checks below test whether your postings keep this stock correct.

Run these six checks in order, using reports Tally already has. Each is a pass or fail, and every fail points to a voucher you can open and correct. The pass and fail rules are our recommendation.

Does the Negative Stock report show zero items?

Open Display, then Exception Reports, then Negative Stock. Pass: the report is empty. Fail: any item appears. Open each item and trace it to the voucher that took stock below zero. The usual suspects are the godown chosen on a sale and a purchase never entered.

Does Batch Summary show zero negative batches?

Press Alt+G, type "Batch Summary" and press Enter, then scan the closing quantity for negative figures. Pass: no batch is negative. Fail: any batch is negative, including one that offsets a positive batch of the same number in another godown. That offset is the case that leaves Stock Summary showing value but no quantity. Correct the godown on the outward entry.

Is "Warn on negative stock balance?" set to Yes?

In voucher entry, press F12, choose Configure and find "Warn on negative stock balance?". Pass: it is Yes. Fail: it is No. Even with Yes, the voucher is still accepted, so a pass here means your entry staff see the warning, not that bad entries are prevented.

Do outwards match invoiced quantities on your five fastest-moving items?

For your five fastest-moving items, compare the outward quantity in Stock Summary with the quantity on your sales invoices for the same period. Pass: they match. Fail: outwards exceed invoiced quantity, which points to a delivery note posted on top of an invoice, as in the delivery-note case described below.

Does a physical count of 20 items match the book?

Count 20 items and record each on a Physical Stock voucher, with item, godown, batch and counted quantity. Godown and batch fields appear only if multiple godowns and batch-wise details are switched on. Tally's documentation describes how it works. If inventory vouchers are set to ignore physical stock differences, the voucher is a record only. Otherwise, later transactions use the balance in the voucher.

Pass: every sampled item matches the book. Fail: any gap. Note the reason on the voucher: damage, expiry, shortage or an unposted movement. For how to pick items and schedule counts, see cycle counting. For gaps your vouchers do not explain, see why system stock differs from the shelf.

Does closing value fall by cost, not sale price, after a sale?

Pick one item, post a sale and watch its closing stock value. Pass: it falls by the cost under the item's valuation method. Fail: it falls by the sale value. Fix the valuation method on the stock item master, choosing from the valuation methods Tally offers.

Stock goes wrong in Tally when a voucher posts to the wrong place or a movement is never posted. Tally documents the main causes: an outward entry against a godown or batch that holds no stock, and an inward entry that was never recorded. Its default response is a warning, not a block.

Four patterns explain most negative-stock cases in Tally's documentation and public forums:

• Wrong godown or batch. If a sales invoice is recorded against a godown and batch with no stock, Tally's Stock Summary FAQ confirms the Stock Summary shows negative values there. When one godown or batch is positive and another negative for the same number, the quantities cancel and only the value remains.
• Missing inward entry. The same FAQ says sold items show negative when the inward value is not maintained, or when no manufacturing journal records production.
• Double posting. A CA Club India thread from 2011, from the Tally.ERP 9 era, describes a user who raised both a sales entry and a delivery note for the same goods and ended with a closing balance of -10. The advice given was that there is no need for a delivery note if you are not using order processing. Our rule: if you do not use order processing, do not raise delivery notes on top of invoices.
• Wrong valuation. A 2023 thread on the same forum describes closing stock value falling by the sale value of 10 pens (₹300) instead of their cost. The advice was to check the valuation method on the stock item master.

Tally does not stop you. Tally's own guidance says that with "Warn on negative stock balance?" set to Yes, "the invoice or delivery note will still be accepted, irrespective of the warnings." Our recommendation is to review the Negative Stock report weekly and to give one named person that job.

If the checks clear once you correct the vouchers and stay clear for a month, you have a posting problem and Tally is enough. If errors keep returning, or stock numbers must be visible to people outside accounts, the cause is process or tooling. The table below is our recommendation.

The first three rows are fixed with discipline, and Tally already has the features for them. The fourth is a different problem, because the people who need the answer never open Tally.

Inventory is part of TallyPrime itself, so you do not buy a separate stock module. As of October 2026, Tally's buy page lists these prices before 18% GST (Goods and Services Tax), with the 10% discount on 12-month rentals already applied:

TSS (Tally Software Services, the support and updates subscription) is included in the lifetime licences. If several people on different PCs post vouchers at the same time, you need Gold.

It makes sense when your sales team works in Salesforce and needs live stock, incoming orders and lead times there while accounts stay in Tally. Arka Inventory is built natively on Salesforce, so reps see inventory on hand across locations, inventory on order and expected lead times while they create orders.

Sales orders are part of the Enterprise plan, so confirm your plan covers order entry in Salesforce.

Our Tally integration passes invoices, bills and transaction details from Arka Inventory to Tally. If you are weighing other ways to connect stock to Salesforce, four routes and their costs sets them side by side. One point from it applies here: a connector between two separate systems leaves two stock counts, so decide which one is the master.

Our plans are yearly subscriptions, priced in US dollars as of October 2026:

• Basic is $199 a month, paid yearly, with 1 user included and extra users at $42 a month. It includes multiple warehouses, purchase orders, transfers, barcoding, packing slips and inventory alerts.
• Advance is $499 a month, paid yearly, with 2 users included and extra users at $52 a month. It adds bills of material, production and kitting.
• Enterprise is quoted individually. It adds sales orders, lot and serial tracking, landed cost and bin tracking, with dedicated support.

For five users, our arithmetic on those published prices gives Basic at $199 + 4 × $42 = $367 a month and Advance at $499 + 3 × $52 = $655 a month. Compare that with Tally's licence prices only with care: Tally is an accounting-led system and ours is a stock layer, so they do different jobs.

You can start with a 15-day free trial with full access to all features and no credit card. Onboarding takes a minimum of two weeks, and standard setup guidance and configuration help are included.

To see how this would sit beside your own Tally setup, talk to our team. You can also email support@arkainventory.com or call +91 93902 73833, Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 6 PM IST.