Tally Solutions, a company with a legacy of more than 30 years and 2.7 million paid customers, is embracing AI to simplify accounting and business operations for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
With AI-driven projects already underway, the company is reimagining how invoices, analytics, and data queries can become effortless for its users.
In an exclusive conversation with AIM, Nabendu Das, chief of engineering and head of products at Tally Solutions, said theirs is a pure-play product company that understands the SME segment “very well”.
The next logical step, Das said, is integrating AI into the core of this understanding.
Automation and Conversational AI
Das said that most SMEs still lack compelling AI-driven solutions designed for their scale and price point.
Commenting on AI’s potential, Das said the company sees significant opportunity in terms of automation, data exchange, data query and analytics. He suggested that AI would introduce previously unimaginable conveniences.
One of the first projects Tally is piloting involves automating invoice exchange. Instead of manually entering purchase data, a customer can forward an invoice received via WhatsApp or email.
“It will automatically become an invoice on your system,” Das noted. This reduces human errors and saves significant time for small businesses.
The company is also building a conversational engine for business queries. Instead of navigating complex menus and reports, a user could simply ask, “Who were my top three customers in the last three years?” or “Which stock item has given me the highest revenue?”
Its AI system is being developed as a conversational engine, enabling users to execute relevant queries on their data, as explained by Das.
Building Towards an Accounting LLM
Tally’s vision stretches further, with aspirations to create a domain-specific accounting large language model (LLM). While this project remains in the foundational phase, the company is already experimenting with models like Llama, Qwen 2.5, and Gemini, while staying flexible. “We don’t want to get stuck with one model,” Das emphasised.
A major part of this work is DocAI, which processes varied invoice formats using OCR combined with an LLM, before transforming the data into a structure that Tally can process.
“Irrespective of how your invoice looks, it will be able to identify [what that is],” Das explained. The company ensures privacy by encrypting data with keys only customers can access, a move aimed at reinforcing trust in AI adoption.
Das acknowledged that the biggest challenge AI systems face is delivering accuracy and precision. “The problem with AI models is [that] many times, if you use it for an analysis on something, it will give you an analysis like an essay. [But] when it comes to business, you need precision,” he said.
Simplicity as Strategy
Despite all the complexity that comes with AI, Tally’s guiding principle remains simplicity for end users.
Das argued that AI can, in fact, reduce the bloat in software by abstracting complexity. “You may have 100 features in the product, but as a business may use 30 of them. The conversation engine will kind of hide away that complexity.”
Das underscored that while technology is important, the ultimate goal is to free customers from learning software intricacies so they can focus on running their businesses.
This approach also defines how Tally differentiates itself in an industry dominated by financial ERP systems and global partnerships.
Das said that the ideal technology solution for the SMEs is adaptive, so that the enterprises can continue running their business the way they want to, and not the other way round, where the business needs to adapt to the technology.
He added that designing for India’s vast and diverse SME landscape requires building tools that feel personal and intuitive. “This is why Tally is easy to set up, simple to start operations within minutes, and seamless to run business day after day.”
Staying True to the SME Vision
While Tally occasionally caters to large enterprises and government clients, its heart remains with small businesses. “While our primary focus continues to be on empowering MSMEs, we also serve large enterprises and government clients where the needs align with what TallyPrime delivers best: simplicity, compliance, and scalability,” Das said.
He highlighted that their fundamental goal, however, remains to streamline business management for MSMEs. This sector is a key driver of economic growth and job creation across various regions. By empowering these businesses with accessible and dependable technology, they generate a widespread positive impact.
Looking ahead, Tally’s efforts in AI are set to reshape how SMEs interact with technology. Whether through automated document exchange, conversational queries, or an eventual accounting LLM, the company is betting on AI not to complicate, but to simplify.
The post Tally Solutions Bets on AI to Simplify Business for SMEs appeared first on Analytics India Magazine.
