Mahendra Rana for Tally

Mahendra Rana for Tally

Hi there.

I am Mahendra Rana and I’m guessing that by now you may have read one of my blog posts or maybe  you know me on Twitter or Facebook.

My Educational and work life

I studied in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Gujarat and completed my school and college graduation.

[Fast forward twenty-five years] I moved to Rajkot, to undertake Articles for the Chartered Accountancy Course. In just two years, my life completely changed! Before enrolling with the ICAI. During my college years, I had followed every exercise of practical accounts from the textbook which developed the foundation of my accounting skills. Yet I knew nothing about Tally or a computer at that time. In the year 1992, I saw a computer for the first time in my life. Back then I didn’t even know how to use a computer. That time, my boss was working late night shifts to write his own books of accounts on Tally software after 8 p.m. due to the workload during office hours he didn’t have time to operate the computers as he remained busy with clients and other day-to-day office work. I offered my boss to help with the computer and his work. Fortunately, my boss agreed as he lent me that costly piece to handle which was a 386 Model and a very costly piece at that time. He taught me some basics of Tally and then daily I worked on that 386 model up to 11 p.m. and then again in the early morning at 9 a.m. i have to attend that office. Soon I come to know that the Monitor is not the computer and real power is within the CPU and eventually, I started to know more and more about computers and computer’s power. But my main interest was the Tally and Tally’s power!

It got me so excited! After that, I was like a sponge, and I was able to grasp everything I learned and ran with it! I became so confident in my skills and ability, that shortly after graduating, I was able to quickly and easily get myself my very first  accounts  job as a senior Accountant in an evening newspaper, Rajkot. and I also started to write books of accounts as a freelancer because at that time there was a great shortage of people knowing computers or the Tally software itself. I really loved the gig! The people were awesome, the vibe was great, you name it! It was a DREAM job! For a little while anyway… 

But the wheels of fortune always rolling down. Something happened in my life. The newspaper was sold out, I wasn’t ready to work with the new management for some unforeseen reason. I left the job. I still have my own freelance business so had nothing to worry which was paying me much more then the salary but that job was an awesome job indeed. I returned back full time to my own business. However there was something else in my life. Again due to personal reasons and I had to close down that freelance business which was a great source of income and future of my life however that was ruined without any fault of mine. It was the 2001 the tragic EarthQuacke era which hit entire Gujarat so adversely! 

Then a period came in my life which was horrible period. I was in debt of Rs. 6 lacs due to some personal circumstances had no job, no business. The Whole day I was spending time in cyber cafes to pass my time. It wasn’t a productive time for me but rather very expensive time as Daily it billed me Rs. 80-140 without any income however eventually without any visible knowledge it was giving me some benefits like increasing my typing speed, professionalism, understanding of the cyber world, designing websites, programming languages etc. These are the benefits which weren’t visible at that time but after 2-4 years, they benefited me a lot.

Somehow, I got married that time I was working as an Accountant with a small firm for a salary of Rs. 3000 per month in the year of 2004-05. This wasn’t a life which I had dreamed for but had to work and there were monthly commitments of Rs. 30k towards repayment of the debt and all the bank’s collection agents were always behind me. Fortunately, they were very co-operative to me and always adjusted 🙂

But as I can’t build my life for Rs. 3k per month, I left that job, again was unemployed  but I had trust on myself on my capabilities. Again 2 months I spent unemployed as I was looking for a special company, where I can perform some magic to build my life once again.

I came to know about such a company(HiteshBhai Shah, Metoda) which was 17 km away from my residence. I walked 5 km to attend the interview. The person in charge asked me a question about a debit note which I failed to satisfy his answer. I had to forget that interview and had to look for something else. However,  fortunately,  one partner of that company was a CA. He reviewed my CV after that scary interview. Yes, I knew how to write a great CV and my cv was supported with the qualification and experience. That CA called me for an interview. I accepted that.

Just a 20 minute of the interview with him, he appointed me for a salary of Rs 5k in the year of 2005.  I agreed to join from the next day. However that evening, I had an offer from another company, Mr. Jayeshbhai Radadiya. for Rs. 6k which was nearer to my home. He was kind of enough to give me job without any reference and with immediate effect. It was such a great relief to me during those days and gave me confidence that there are still people around us who can support us. Ofcourse I choose the Job of Rs. 5k, Metoda Based factory for Fire Extinguisher as my heart was telling me that this job will change my life. and yeah it  happened. During the first 3 months, My salary was increased by 25% and I was promoted to the head of the Accounts department just in 3 months and in one year, I got my dream salary with the same company with an increment of 200% and I was even promoted to General Manager of the company. Not only this but company helped me financially also  to reduce my debt! so my decision to join a company with a lower salary proved right. This is why in life one should not always think about money only! Mr. Shah was one of the best boss, I ever met during my professional life.

But again I can’t live a life solely on a Job. I come to know about blogging. I had a passion for teaching Tally and it was the year of 2007-08 when people were looking for help for Tally and accounts. I started tallynine.com to help those fellows freely.  I invested lot of time after this blog to help people. 

As my boss Mr. Hitesh Shah always said me that “Good work always paysoff ! I believed and followed his advice. It was a wonderful piece of advice which gave me immense benefits in life at every stage and I started to do good work without caring if I am being benefitted or not

Tally helped me to come out of my debt, Tally gave me financial security which everyone needs. I started helping Tally user community for free and it rewarded me unbelievably amazing! I invested my personal  money and time to offer free help to those users without expecting anything from the users but even then the more time and money I was spending to help others, it was returning me more and more rewards

So, the long story short, lesson I learned in life are keep learning new things, help each other and it will pay you much more! Never stop learning something new. You don’t know when it will be useful for you.

After that, I worked with Many different company and industries including MNC company. I worked very closely with employees as well as management with all of my companies. I even interviewed, recruited and trained many candidates and made them experts in accountancy because I worked with real accounts in my day-to-day life and due to the experience of more than 20+ years, accountancy and Tally are as easy for me like breathing in and out! It’s so natural for me that I can figure out any accounting issues even if somebody asked me at mid night!

My Interest, hobby, and mission

Since my childhood, I am a crazy reader. I read and read. I read almost anything from science to sex, accounts to spy knowledge, thriller novels, tech to agriculture and I love to learn things on my own. I learned typing on my own, I learn Tally on my own and yes, I learn accountancy during my college from the textbook (course syllabus) I read 1000 pages of Shukla and Grewal famous Accounting books during my college life and exercised all the examples myself.

I am founder and CEO of I Vision Info Tech an authorized Tally sales and service Partner since April 2008. I learned a lot about making a website, HTML, C++, some other programming and even as on date, I am extensively learning Ruby on Rails along with my 9 to 9, a  full-time job as Manager Accounts with one SMB company in Mangalore.

I have to admit that all these learning is worth of and sooner or later it pays back much more. You can’t stop learning for lack of money. I remember I spent a huge borrowed sum to spent on my cyber care when I was unemployed and didn’t  any business to do at that time, I borrowed money from other people and spent that heavy money after cyber cafes to surf net, chatting with people and 3 years later it rewarded me 10 times 🙂

What is this site?

I teach lessons in levelling up your business and your skill.  I offer extensive training, system setup, customized software and solutions to meet your business requirements

My work has led me through all of these paths.  I’ve dealt with all this challenges, like:

• Training people in accounts who may or may not belong to commercial background
• Accounting system setup and training to enable the automated task for error-free and speedy work.
• Some  people that I trained are managing entire accounts department even though they are non-commerce students.

Most of the things I publish here dive deep into those functions.  Even if you’re just getting started, I hope the things I share here can help you plot your next move.

I believe while learning something one needs a mentor to guide. If you are in job and have an experienced and expert boss to guide you, you are really a lucky one. But if you don’t have such person in your life, you need a person like me to help you.

Read How I helped Vijayalakshmi to save her job in the accounts department

Update 23.06.2023

Even though, without a coding background and coming from the accounting profession,

I started my own Software company back in 2017 and also developed  Bizmitra GST Billing Software
alongwith a mobile app  and it can seamlessly sync Tally data across multiple remote location