Tally Prime for a manufacturing company: what it handles, and when you need more

Tally Prime for a manufacturing company records the batch you finished. A bill of materials on the finished item lists the components, a manufacturing journal consumes them and takes in scrap or a by-product, and the voucher shows a cost for what landed in the finished-goods godown. Job work out and job work in cover material that left for plating or heat treatment. A schedule, a routing and a material plan from open sales orders sit outside that journal. A factory that needs them keeps Tally Prime as the books and runs the plan in another system.

What Tally Prime does for a manufacturing company

Some 2026 buying guides still say Tally has no bill of materials. Tally Help’s manufacturing journal, updated 22 October 2026, consumes components from a bill of materials and brings the finished item into stock. The third column of the table is what each object leaves out.

Reorder level is a number on the stock item, and the check compares that number with the balance on hand. Open sales orders, lead time and quantity already at the plater stay outside the comparison.

How do you record a manufacturing journal in TallyPrime

The long procedure is Manage inventory in manufacturing, updated 16 February 2026. You need stock items and godowns, and a bill of materials if you want the lines to fill. You can save the journal with no bill of materials and type the components when the job is a one-off. A part you make every week should carry the bill of materials on the stock item, so the lines fill from the master.

Put the bill of materials on the stock item

1. Press Alt+G (Go To) > Create Master > Stock Item. Gateway of Tally > Create > Stock Item is the same screen.
2. Set a unit. Tally Help says Set Components (BOM) does not appear when Units is blank.
3. If the BOM option is still missing, press F12 (Configure) and turn on Set Component List (Bill of Materials) in Stock Items.
4. Set Components (BOM) to Yes. Name the BOM. Standard is enough when there is one recipe. Add another name when a customer wants a different component and you will use that recipe again.
5. Unit of manufacture is how many finished pieces this component list makes. Then item, godown and quantity.
6. For scrap, a by-product or a co-product, press F12 on the component screen and set Define Type of Component for BOM to Yes. The type is Component, Co-Product, By-Product or Scrap. On scrap and on a co-product or by-product, you also enter a percentage of cost.
7. Press Ctrl+A to save.

A second BOM can start from the first. Alter the stock item, turn on Alter Components (BOM), type the new name, and press Ctrl+C (Copy BoM). Help says the copy brings components across, and you still type the unit of manufacture and the quantities. When a repeat customer wants one gasket swapped and you will use that recipe again, change the master. Once the list is rewritten on every order, the master has stopped controlling the issue.

Record the journal

1. Press Alt+G (Go To) > Create Voucher > Alt+F7 (Stock Journal). If the voucher type is inactive, Tally asks you to activate it.
2. Press Ctrl+H (Change Mode) > Use for Manufacturing Journal.
3. Name of product, then Name of BOM. The component lines fill from that BOM. Godown is where the finished quantity will sit.
4. Enter the quantity. F12 can skip the scrap block when the BOM has none. If the BOM already lists scrap, a co-product or a by-product, Help says that skip is ignored and the lines still appear.
5. Check quantity, godown and rate. Amount is quantity times rate. Tally Help says: “You can review and update the details before saving the voucher.”
6. Type of Additional Cost is an expense ledger and a percentage. Effective Cost is components plus that addition. Effective Rate of Primary Item is the per-piece cost after anything allocated to scrap, a co-product or a by-product.
7. Press Ctrl+A to save.

If the item tracks batches, manufacturing date and expiry, the quantity will not fill. The inventory and manufacturing FAQ says Tally will not choose a batch, and it will not split one line across two batches, so you select the batch on the voucher yourself.

Tally Solutions How to Record Manufacturing of Finished Goods in TallyPrime | Tally Learning Hub

Use a stock journal when the goods only move

Without Ctrl+H, a stock journal has a source and a destination. Help’s dyeing example is the pattern: plain fabric moves from Stores to a Washing godown, then a second voucher consumes it there and produces washed fabric. Dyeing uses that same pattern again. Alt+G > Godown Summary, then Alt+F5, shows the quantity at each stage.

Read the cost on the voucher you posted

Alt+G > Cost Estimation is the cost on the bill of materials, for judging a selling price. Help says that figure will differ from the journal’s effective rate, because the estimate follows the item from purchase to sale and the journal’s rate is only the cost that voucher absorbed for the batch now in stock.

Help also lets you create an optional voucher type under stock journal, with Use as a Manufacturing Journal turned on, and call it a purchase requisition. You type every line, and nothing on that page raises the requisition from open sales orders.

How does job work in and out work in TallyPrime

Plating, heat treatment, painting and outside machining are ordinary on a component line, and Tally Prime can track the material when the vouchers are recorded in order. Record them out of sequence and the stock report will not match the floor, while the trial balance still looks fine.

Set the company up once

Press F11 (Company Features), or Alt+K (Company) > Features, and set Enable Job Order Processing to Yes. Then alter the Material Out and Material In voucher types so Tally knows whether you are the principal or the job worker. The setup page is the one to follow for those flags, including zero-value material out when you do not want a chargeable amount on the goods you sent.

Get the flag wrong and the material-out voucher can sit in the day book and never appear in the Material Out Register. The inventory FAQ says you cannot turn Use for Job Work on after that voucher type already has transactions. Create a new voucher type under Material Out, set the flag, and record the movement there.

Material out and material in move the stock

As a principal, the sequence is:

1. Alt+G > Create Voucher > F10 > Job Work Out Order. Select the job worker. Nature of processing can wait on this order and is required when the goods leave. Duration of process is the days you expect.
2. Track Components is Yes only when a bill of materials should follow the goods. A hub sent for plating and returned as the same hub already has its bill of materials, so Track Components has nothing new to follow. Due on is the date you want it back.
3. F10 > Material Out against that order. The order’s details prefill. Set the destination godown and press Ctrl+A. The quantity moves on Stock with the job worker. Help says the Job Work Out Orders report itself does not touch inventory.
4. F10 > Material In on return. If the count comes back short, the shortage stays open until you record it.
5. F9 (Purchase) for the job worker’s tax invoice, then F5 (Payment). The plating charge is a purchase of a service, posted on its own voucher.

Auto-consumption is the other case. Allow consumption must be on, and a consumption godown is mandatory or nothing is consumed. F12’s Allow Auto Consumption, with Consider as Primary Item, consumes the bill of materials of what you receive. Use it when the job worker makes the finished item from your components. On plating, use it only if the plated hub is a new stock item with the unplated hub on its bill of materials. If the hub comes back as the same stock item, auto-consumption issues it out and receives it in on the same voucher.

The GST clock on goods that left

As of October 2026, goods go to the job worker on a delivery challan. The Telangana commercial taxes handbook on job work, June 2026 edition, restates section 143 of the CGST Act: inputs and semi-finished goods come back within one year, capital goods within three years, or the transfer is a supply from the day they were sent. Moulds and dies, jigs and fixtures, and tools sit outside that clock. The handbook also says more time can be allowed, and that an interstate job-work movement needs an e-way bill with no value floor. The one-year date is stored on the material-out voucher, and you have to open that voucher to see the deadline, because a challan left in a file will not remind anyone.

Form GST ITC-04 is the statement of those challans. GSTN’s ITC-04 offline utility manual says that from 1 October 2021 the period follows aggregate turnover in the preceding year: above ₹5 crore, half-yearly (April to September and October to March); up to ₹5 crore, yearly. The handbook puts the due date on the 25th of the following month. Tally Prime holds the vouchers, and you file the statement on the GST portal, under Services > Returns > ITC Forms.

A sample batch: machine the hubs, then send them for plating

This is a teaching voucher. The item name matches the wheel hub on our manufacturing page, where an example order line is 120 nos. The rates below are what you would type on the journal, and we did not measure them on a customer job.

Bill of materials “Standard” on Machined hub, unit of manufacture 100:

• Rough casting, godown Stores, 100 nos, typed at ₹180. Amount ₹18,000.
• Carbide insert, godown Stores, 4 nos, typed at ₹350. Amount ₹1,400.
• Swarf, type Scrap, 6 kg, cost allocation 2 percent, into a scrap godown.

Component cost on those two lines is ₹19,400, before the 2 percent on swarf. Read Effective Cost and Effective Rate of Primary Item on the voucher, because those two fields are the value in stock after the swarf allocation. A side sheet that recalculates the lines and “corrects” them will not match what Tally has posted.

Invoice the 120 before this journal and F12’s negative-stock warning fires. Post the journal when the bin has been counted, rather than letting another workflow invent a quantity to clear the warning. Sales Order Outstandings shows what is still to deliver. The journal puts the 100 into stock and leaves them unreserved, so purchase still has to work out how to cover the rest of the order.

Where Tally Prime runs out

The journal records a batch someone has already decided to run, and the decision itself stays on a board or in one person’s head. That holds while the recipe repeats.

A material plan starts from open orders

A material plan explodes open sales orders through every level of the bill of materials, subtracts stock, purchase orders and material at job workers, and suggests a buy or a make by date. Tally Prime multiplies the BOM you selected, on the voucher you are typing, and nothing on that voucher reads the open sales orders. The optional purchase requisition is that same voucher: you type the lines, and open sales orders do not fill them. Reorder level fires when the item balance crosses the minimum, and open sales orders do not enter that test.

The hub journal consumed castings, which is one level. A casting you pour has its own bill of materials and its own earlier journal, unless you bought it. Help never describes one journal that walks from the hub down to the metal, so you stock the casting or you put its components on the hub.

Work centre and time belong on a routing

Facing, drilling and inspection are operations, each with a work centre and a time. A godown named Drilling can hold the quantity that has reached drilling, once someone records the stock journal, and the balance still will not show whether the fixture is occupied or whether Thursday’s plating slot is the constraint. You can also keep a Hold godown for rejects, and F12 can hide expired batches. A pass or fail with a reason and a named release, or a trace from a complaint back through every job worker, needs its own record, because the godown balance and the batch stop at quantity and dates.

The signs the books are no longer the floor

These are the tests we use when the books are already in Tally and the parts mostly repeat.

1. The bill of materials changes on almost every order, so the real recipe is a spreadsheet.
2. You need a work-in-progress value during the month, and the stage godowns are weeks behind the floor.
3. Material at job workers is a notebook, and ITC-04 is rebuilt from challan copies.
4. Purchase is the owner remembering what is short, and the shortage appears when the job is about to start.
5. A buyer asks where the order is, and the answer is a phone call to the supervisor.
6. You need the job’s margin before the truck leaves, and labour was never on the voucher.
7. Several people must enter vouchers at once, which Gold covers through concurrent users. The six situations above need a planning system.

When a small factory should stay, add a desk, or move the floor

Stay on Tally Prime when the SKUs repeat, one or two bills of materials cover them, the batch is posted when it is finished, and job work is a few vendors with challans already in Tally. A desk around the books covers retyping, chasing, and a question the voucher already holds. Dates, work centres and material from the open order book are the point where the floor has to move to another system.

As of 26 October 2026, Tally’s cost-of-ownership page, updated 13 July 2026, lists Silver at ₹750 a month, ₹8,100 for 12 months, or ₹22,500 once, and Gold at ₹2,250 a month, ₹24,300 for 12 months, or ₹67,500 once, before 18 percent GST. TSS is included for the first year, then ₹4,500 a year on Silver and ₹13,500 on Gold, plus GST. The buy page that week matched the licence figures. Gold is concurrent users. A lapsed TSS keeps the company and stops statutory updates.

The cost of staying is that licence plus the time to key the journal. A planning system keeps the Tally bill and adds a second subscription. Public posts in October 2026 disagreed on that second price, because the plans differed. Read the vendor’s page on the day you sign, and ask who implements it and what year two costs. Replacing Tally means a migration and a close your accountant has to relearn. The floor tests above are the case for making that change. Tally Help documents the manufacturing journal, which corrects any guide that says the journal does not exist.

The purchase order on WhatsApp is a different desk

A dealer photo that becomes a draft sales order stays on the order and never reaches this journal. The match is party, item and rate, a person approves the draft, and the lines a system must not guess are written up in purchase order to sales order automation. The manufacturing journal starts after the order is accepted and a batch is being made. Reading the photo produces that draft, and the lower-level recipe and the work centre are chosen later, outside the photo.

If those orders are still keyed by hand, that desk is the first one we would take, and a finite schedule is a larger job than a short workflow build should imitate. What we book, what a person still approves, and what we leave alone are on the manufacturing page. The other systems for sales and operations are under services. Tally Prime stays the books while the first workflow, on your WhatsApp Business number and the company you already run, goes live in 3 to 6 weeks. If it does not work in 45 days, the setup fee comes back.

Frequently asked questions

Can I print the bill of materials from the stock item?

Tally Help says you cannot print the bill of materials from the stock item screen. Record an optional manufacturing journal against that bill of materials and print the voucher. Optional means it need not post into stock. Treat the print as shop paper. The live quantities stay on the stock item, because the print goes stale the day someone alters the master.

Does a garment factory use a different manufacturing voucher?

The manufacturing journal is the same voucher. Style, colour and size are stock items, or batches, and the bill of materials sits on that item. Tally Help does not describe a garment module, a cut order, or a size matrix. If fabric quantity changes on every lay, you are editing the bill of materials on the voucher. That is where a repeating master stops being the control.

Does one manufacturing journal lock the stock journal after it?

Ctrl+H sets Use for Manufacturing Journal on the voucher you are in. Tally Help's inventory FAQ says that after you save, Alt+F7 opens a stock journal again. The next voucher is not stuck in manufacturing mode. Do not expect to alter an old stock journal and turn it into a manufacturing journal. Record the movement in the mode you meant, while the quantities are still in front of you.

Is manufacturing a module I have to buy on top of Tally Prime?

No separate manufacturing module showed on the price list we checked. On Tally's cost-of-ownership page, updated 13 July 2026, Silver and Gold carry the same features. Gold is concurrent users on one local network. The manufacturing journal, bill of materials, godowns and job work orders are in the product. A planning system, if you need one, is a separate subscription.

Can I pre-close a job work order that the vendor will not finish?

Yes. Tally Help lets you pre-close a job work out order when delivery fails or the balance will never arrive. Do it, or the next material-in still looks like it belongs to that order. Pre-close does not write the pieces off. Goods still at the plater stay on the material-out until a material-in, a scrap entry, or a decision that GST treats them as a deemed supply.

Will an expired batch be offered on the manufacturing journal?

By default, yes. F12 on the manufacturing journal includes Use Expired Batches, and Tally Help says those batches stay in the list unless you set that option to No. The list does not pick one for you. If the item tracks batch, manufacturing date and expiry, the component quantity will not fill on its own. You choose the batch, including one that is past its date.