At 5:58 AM, he exported the final Company Data Backup from Tally v10 as a .900 file (the old format). He emailed it to Mr. Mehta with a single line:
By 4:45 AM, all masters and vouchers were in. He opened the Trial Balance in Tally v10. Then he opened the PDF from v11.
“How to convert tally data version 11 to 10?”
It was 1:17 AM. His client, Shanti Enterprises, had audited their books in TallyPrime (Release 11). The problem? Their new investor, a grumpy traditionalist named Mr. Mehta, refused to upgrade his ancient Tally.ERP 9 (Release 10). “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it,” Mehta had barked over the phone. “Convert the data to Version 10 by morning, or the deal is off.” how to convert tally data version 11 to 10
But there was a ghost: The opening balance for “Prepaid Insurance” was off by ₹12. He traced it to a journal entry in v11 that used an “Adjustment Period” field—a feature v10 ignored. He manually entered that ₹12 correction via a journal voucher in v10.
He remembered one more trick: Use a third-party tool as a bridge. Not the shady DLL, but a legitimate free tool: Tally Data Converter Lite by a small firm in Pune. He downloaded it (praying the free trial worked). The tool read his v11 export files, stripped away version-specific tags, and spat out a Tally v10 compatible .TXT file for each master and transaction.
He leaned back, his chair creaking in protest. Then, a memory surfaced. His first job, at a chaotic CA firm. A senior had once whispered a secret: “Tally doesn’t downgrade. But Tally doesn’t know everything. Export the data, transform it, and import into an empty shell.” At 5:58 AM, he exported the final Company
Using Excel’s Find & Replace, he deleted those columns. He also noticed v10’s ledger import expected Parent as a name, not a GUID number. He manually mapped the groups: “Sundry Debtors (v11)” → “Sundry Debtors (v10).” It was tedious, like translating poetry into a child’s rhyme.
“You cannot downgrade Tally data. Database structure changed. Re-enter manually or export to Excel.” Tally User Group: “Try exporting Masters as CSV and recreate Company in v10.” A shady blog: “Use this unofficial DLL (use at your own risk)” – Arjun wisely ignored that.
His fingers flew across the keyboard, typing the desperate query into every forum, WhatsApp group, and ChatGPT window he could find: He opened the Trial Balance in Tally v10
Then he slept on his desk.
The answers were a graveyard of bad news.
He held his breath and imported the first TXT into Tally v10.
They matched. Down to the last rupee.