Excel: free until it is not
Excel is familiar, flexible, and dangerous at scale. Formulas break. Versions fork across phones. Nobody knows which file is “final.” It works for a sole trader with twenty lines a month — not for GST invoices, vendor udhar, and a contractor roster.
The hidden cost is owner time every Sunday and CA time every filing cycle. If your books only exist in one person’s head plus a spreadsheet, you do not have a system — you have a single point of failure.
Tally: India’s default ledger — still voucher-heavy
Tally is the most widely used accounting stack in India for a reason: GST ledgers, inventory, and CA familiarity run deep. Many firms run clean books on it with a disciplined practice. The friction shows up in day-to-day owner work: steep voucher entry, desktop-first habits, and workflows that were not designed around UPI QR collections, WhatsApp reminders, or contractor labour desks that start from handwritten notebooks.
Bank imports and reconciliation exist, but they are not the same as statement-first AI bookkeeping. Setup and ongoing entry still need process discipline — software does not remove that requirement.
ZetaBooks: statement-first books for Indian desks
ZetaBooks positions as AI bookkeeping without live bank login: upload statements, raise GST invoices with Indian payment links, run vendor audit and contractor desk, then export a CA pack. Human-in-the-loop AI means you confirm unclear rows before posting.
Pick Excel only while volume is tiny. Pick Tally if your CA already runs a mature Tally practice and your team is comfortable with voucher workflows. Pick ZetaBooks if you want India-first collections, statement upload safety, and a path from free forever to Medium / Contractor / Large as you grow. Compare the feature table on the ZetaBooks site, then start free with one real bank statement.