Called `Tally 9', the new software encompasses modules on point of sale accounting, pay roll and job processing, fringe benefit tax and helps generate VAT-related reports.

Tally 9 is also concurrently multilingual, which means users can switch between English and other Indian languages while processing a transaction. For instance, one may have recorded a transaction in English but can choose to process it, modify it or take print outs of it in Tamil. This is different from a regular multilingual feature where one cannot switch between languages for the same business transaction.

To incorporate this concurrent multilingual capability, Tally 9 has been designed with a different software architecture compared to its previous versions such as Tally 6.3 and Tally 7.2, said Mr Shoaib Ahmed, Vice-President (South Asia - Sales), Tally (India) Private Ltd. However, users of previous Tally versions can upgrade themselves to Tally 9 for about Rs 3,500 (for those upgrading from Tally 7.2), he said.

Tally 9 comes in two versions — silver (single user capability) and gold (multi user capability) — and is priced at Rs 9,900 and Rs 24,000 respectively.

Mr Ahmed said demand for the gold version would go up this year, as small businesses are growing in size and increasingly becoming multi-user.

Tally Solutions has about 20-lakh registered users in 90 countries.