Automating Invoice Uploads into Tally ERP 9 & Tally Prime: A Step-by-Step Guide

As businesses increasingly focus on improving operational efficiency, automation has become essential, especially when it comes to managing invoices. Automating the process of downloading invoices from emails and uploading them directly into Tally ERP 9 or Tally Prime can save time, reduce errors, and streamline the Procure-to-Pay (P2P) process.

This guide explains how to automate the task of downloading invoices from your email, extracting necessary data, and uploading it into both Tally ERP 9 and Tally Prime using a seamless workflow.

 

Step 1: Setting Up Email Parsing

The first step is to automatically retrieve invoice attachments from your inbox. Whether you're using Tally ERP 9 or Tally Prime, this is the foundational step for further automation.

Tools Required:

• Python for scripting.
• Libraries: imaplib (for email access), email (for parsing email content), pyzmail (optional for better email parsing).

Process:

1.     Access Emails: Use Python to access your email account and download attachments from unread invoices.

Example Python script to connect to Gmail and download attachments:

import imaplib

import email

from email.header import decode_header

def connect_to_email():

    mail = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL("imap.gmail.com")

    mail.login("your_email@gmail.com", "your_password")

    mail.select("inbox")  # Select the inbox folder

    return mail

def download_attachments(mail):

    status, messages = mail.search(None, 'UNSEEN')

    email_ids = messages[0].split()

    for email_id in email_ids:

        status, msg_data = mail.fetch(email_id, "(RFC822)")

        for response_part in msg_data:

            if isinstance(response_part, tuple):

                msg = email.message_from_bytes(response_part[1])

                for part in msg.walk():

                    if part.get_content_maintype() == 'application':

                        filename = part.get_filename()

                        if filename:

                            with open(f"attachments/{filename}", "wb") as f:

                                f.write(part.get_payload(decode=True))

2.     Save Attachments: Ensure that your script saves the attachments to a folder for further processing.

Step 2: Extracting Data from Invoice Attachments

After the invoices are downloaded, the next step is to extract the relevant data from these invoices. The most common invoice formats are PDF or Excel, and you need to extract key information such as Supplier Name, Invoice Date, Amount, and Invoice Number.

Tools Required:

• PyPDF2 (for text PDFs) or Tesseract OCR (for scanned PDF images).
• Pandas or openpyxl (for Excel-based invoices).

Process:

1.     Extract Text from PDFs:

o    If invoices are in PDF format, use PyPDF2 to extract the text from the PDF.

from PyPDF2 import PdfReader

def extract_pdf_data(pdf_path):

    reader = PdfReader(pdf_path)

    text = ""

    for page in reader.pages:

        text += page.extract_text()

    return text

2.     Extract Data from Scanned PDFs:

o    If the invoices are scanned images, use Tesseract OCR to convert images to text.

import pytesseract

from PIL import Image

def extract_text_from_image(image_path):

    img = Image.open(image_path)

    text = pytesseract.image_to_string(img)

    return text

3.     Parse the Extracted Data:

o    Parse the extracted text to find and structure relevant information, such as:

§  Supplier Name

§  Invoice Number

§  Date

§  Amount

This can be done through regular expressions or using custom logic based on how the invoices are structured.

Step 3: Formatting the Data for Tally ERP 9 & Tally Prime

Once the data is extracted, it must be formatted into a structure that Tally ERP 9 or Tally Prime can read and process. Both versions of Tally support XML import, which will allow us to upload data directly.

Process:

1.     Generate XML for Tally Import: Tally uses XML for importing data, so you need to generate an XML file based on the extracted data. Here’s how to format the XML for invoice import into both Tally ERP 9 and Tally Prime:

 

def create_tally_xml(invoice_data):

    xml_data = f"""

    <ENVELOPE>

        <HEADER>

            <TALLYREQUEST>Import Data</TALLYREQUEST>

        </HEADER>

        <BODY>

            <IMPORTDATA>

                <REQUESTDESC>

                    <REPORTNAME>Voucher</REPORTNAME>

                </REQUESTDESC>

                <REQUESTDATA>

                    <VOUCHER>

                        <VOUCHERTYPENAME>Purchase</VOUCHERTYPENAME>

                        <DATE>{invoice_data['date']}</DATE>

                        <PARTYNAME>{invoice_data['supplier']}</PARTYNAME>

                        <VOUCHERNUMBER>{invoice_data['invoice_number']}</VOUCHERNUMBER>

                        <AMOUNT>{invoice_data['amount']}</AMOUNT>

                    </VOUCHER>

                </REQUESTDATA>

            </IMPORTDATA>

        </BODY>

    </ENVELOPE>

    """

    return xml_data

In this XML, the VOUCHERTYPENAME is set to Purchase (for purchase invoices), but this can be adjusted depending on the type of transaction (Sales, Expenses, etc.).

 

Step 4: Importing the Data into Tally ERP 9 & Tally Prime

Now that the data is formatted into XML, the next step is to import it into Tally ERP 9 or Tally Prime. Both versions of Tally can use XML imports.

Process:

1.     Using Tally’s XML Import:

o    You can place the XML file in the import folder in Tally and manually trigger the import process. Alternatively, automate this process using the ODBC interface or by placing the XML file in the designated folder and using Tally’s Import Data feature.

2.     Tally ODBC Interface:

o    Tally Prime and Tally ERP 9 support ODBC integration, which allows you to send data directly from your script into Tally.

o    Use Python or another scripting language to connect to Tally via ODBC, and then send the XML or other data for import.

 

Step 5: Automating the Workflow

The final step is to automate the entire workflow. This ensures that the process of downloading invoices, extracting data, and uploading them to Tally is performed on a scheduled basis without manual intervention.

Process:

1.     Set Up Scheduling:

o    On Windows, use Task Scheduler to run your Python script periodically (e.g., every 15 minutes).

o    On Linux, use Cron Jobs to schedule the script to run at specific intervals.

By automating this workflow, invoices received via email will be automatically processed and uploaded into Tally.

 

Conclusion

Automating the process of downloading invoices from email, extracting relevant data, and uploading it directly into Tally ERP 9 or Tally Prime can drastically reduce manual data entry, minimize errors, and enhance the efficiency of your Procure-to-Pay process.

By leveraging tools like Python, OCR technology, and Tally’s XML import feature or ODBC interface, businesses can create a seamless integration between their email system and Tally ERP software, ensuring that invoice data is processed accurately and promptly. This automation helps businesses save time, streamline workflows, and improve overall financial data management.