Bring your Zoho Books archive

Getting the file out of Zoho Books

In Zoho Books, open Settings, then Data Backup under Developer Space, and choose Backup Your Data. Zoho emails you a link when it is ready. Download the .zip and upload it as it is — there is nothing to unzip or rename.

That file holds your records, one spreadsheet per Zoho module. It does not hold your attachments or your reports; the last section says how to keep those too.

Uploading it

Enter your GSTIN in Settings → Business & branding first. Gallafy checks that the invoices in the file were raised under your GSTIN and not somebody else's, and cannot until it knows yours.

Then open Settings → Import & migration and drop the .zip under Move everything from Zoho Books, or choose it; it is read at once. You are shown one line of what comes across and the month your returns start from, then only what needs you, with the rest under Show details, and nothing is imported until you choose Agree and Import.

What comes across, and as what

Contacts become your customers, Vendors your suppliers and Items your products; a party in both lists comes across as both. Invoices, bills, credit notes and the payments received and made against them dated before the month your returns start come across as your history, exactly as Zoho holds them: the same numbers, the same totals and the same tax, never recalculated.

Before you upload, you choose how far back: the last and current financial year, which is where the choice starts, or everything in the file. It governs the invoices, credit notes and payments; bills always come across whole.

History shows in your registers and in what customers owe you. It never reaches a GST return from Gallafy, because those periods were filed from Zoho, and it touches your ledger at most once: one opening entry dated the last day of your previous system, for what you were owed.

Expenses are the exception. Only the ones dated from the month your returns start come across, as expenses paid from your cash or bank; earlier ones are not written, because their cost is already in the balances your old books closed with. The expense file is whole or nothing too: one expense paid by card, by an employee or from any account other than cash or bank refuses the file, so record those by hand.

A document file comes across whole or not at all: if one invoice in it cannot be read, none of that file is imported. A file that cannot come across never stops the others, and the last screen says, one line per file, what came across, what didn't and why. A customer or item row with a problem is skipped and listed with the reason.

Everything else stays readable

The rest of the file is not booked: journals, the chart of accounts, estimates, deposits, transfers, orders, taxes, contact persons and Zoho's activity log. Each one is kept, read-only, under Settings → Import & migration → Open what came from Zoho — a tab per file showing how many rows it holds, a search over every cell, and a CSV download to hand your CA.

Each customer's and supplier's opening balance in Zoho is listed there as well; it is not brought in as a balance. None of it is part of Gallafy's books, reports or GST returns.

The .zip you uploaded is kept too, byte for byte, and listed under Your original files on Settings → Import & migration to download again. The owner and your CA's login can open both.

The month your returns start from

The review says in one line which month Gallafy prepares your GST returns from. It starts at the first month whose return may not have been filed yet. If Zoho filed that month, or furnished part of the quarter through IFF, choose Change month and pick the month after; the file is read again at that month.

Documents dated from that month come across as real Gallafy documents, under the numbers your customers and suppliers already hold, and go into that month's returns. Earlier ones come across as history.

An invoice or credit note from that month must work out here to the paisa exactly as Zoho issued it, or it is refused rather than changed. A bill keeps the figures your supplier charged.

If that month holds an SEZ or export sale made without IGST and your business details hold no LUT, the review asks for the LUT number and its year, and saves them there before the invoices come across.

One month holds for the whole business: the file follows a month you already imported under, and a card set to a different month is refused. The cards under Import from Excel or CSV still take one list each, in this order: Customers, Suppliers, Products, Invoice history, Purchase history, then the two payment cards and Expenses, and Credit notes last.

Last day in your previous system

Once history comes across, the day before your books' start date — 30 June, for a July start — is the last day in your previous system. Up to it your books are Zoho's, and Gallafy will not let you raise a new invoice, credit note, debit note, delivery challan or receipt marked as an advance dated on or before it.

Your opening balances are dated that same day, and once a month is chosen Settings → Opening balances takes no other. Enter cash, bank, what you owed suppliers and your capital as they stood that day; the money after it comes across with the payments. Set the same month on the Products card and your opening stock is dated that day too.

Your profit and loss here starts on your books' start date and says so under the statement. Sales from before it still show in your sales register.

If you bring only history and choose no month, the last day in your previous system is the date of the latest document you brought across.

If it was the wrong file

Each import's history is one batch, and the owner can discard it from Settings → Import & migration: every invoice, bill, credit note and payment it brought across as history goes, and its opening entry is reversed. It refuses if you have built on it here, and names what.

Documents from your month are not in that batch. Undo them the way you would any other — cancel an invoice, reverse a receipt or an expense. A supplier payment cannot be reversed in Gallafy yet, so check that list on the review before you import.

Uploading the same file again brings nothing across twice.

Before you close Zoho

Settings → Import & migration lists what to download before you leave Zoho, under Before you close Zoho, download these: a final backup taken after your last entry, Zoho's separate Backup Documents file for your attachments, your reports, your GST return summaries and your bank transactions.

Upload each one with Keep a file from Zoho. Nothing is imported from it; it is kept, so you never need Zoho to find it again.