The books live on the office computer, the accountant is at home, and the office connection has no static IP. This is the setup offices actually use — Tally data never leaves the office, only the screen travels.
✍️ Technical Anshu🪟 Tally on Windows⏱️ 7 minute read
🎥 Watch the full video — Tally and RDP from home on Tailscale, shown live step by step
Tally is the workload behind this whole question in most small offices. The company data sits on one office PC acting as the Tally server, and staff need it from home — but the office connection is a plain dynamic IP, the ISP wants extra money for a static one, and copying the data folder to a laptop and carrying it home is a corruption and security story waiting to happen. The clean architecture is this — the data stays on the office server, and home users reach that server over Tailscale, a private encrypted network that needs no static IP and no open ports.
How the Home User Reaches Tally
🏠 Home laptop — Tailscale signed in100.91.55.8
🔒 Encrypted tunnel — no port opened anywherePRIVATE
🏢 Office Tally server — Tailscale address100.84.12.37 : 9000
📒 Company data — stays on the office diskNever copied home
☝️ The only thing that travels is the working session — the accounts data itself never leaves the office
1
Prepare the Office Tally Server First
Choose the office PC that holds the company data and treat it as a server — it stays on during working hours, runs the Tally licence, and serves the data
In Tally, make sure the company is loaded and the data server is active. Tally's data service listens on port 9000 by default
Test from another PC on the office LAN first — a local user should be able to open the company through the server before you involve the internet at all
Set this PC to never sleep (Settings, Power, Sleep — Never while plugged in). A sleeping server is the number one reason home users report Tally as down
2
Put the Server and the Home PC on Tailscale
Install Tailscale on the office server and sign in with the owner's account
Install Tailscale on the home user's laptop and sign in — for staff, the owner can invite them properly rather than sharing one personal login
Note the server's permanent 100.x Tailscale address from the tray icon or with tailscale ip -4
From home, run tailscale status and confirm the server shows connected before opening Tally at all
3
Point Home Tally at the Server Address
On the home laptop, open Tally and choose to load the company from the server rather than from a local folder
Enter the server as its Tailscale address with the Tally port — in the form 100.84.12.37:9000, using your server's real 100.x address
The company list should appear exactly as it does inside the office. Select the company and work normally
Alternative pattern some offices prefer — take the server's full desktop with Remote Desktop to the same 100.x address and run Tally on the server itself. This keeps even the Tally application in the office and is the gentler option on a slow home connection
4
Be Honest About Licence and User Count
Multiple people working in the same company data at the same time is multi-user Tally, which needs the appropriate multi-user licence (the Gold edition). A single-user licence does not become multi-user because a VPN is involved
The free Tailscale Personal plan suits an owner checking books from home. A full office with many remote staff should be on a proper Tailscale business plan — still typically cheaper than the static IP plus hardware route, and far safer
Keep Tally's own user accounts and passwords in use. Tailscale decides who can reach the server; Tally's login decides who can open the books
5
Protect the Data Like an Accountant Should ⭐
Back up from the office, on schedule. Take Tally's backup to a separate drive or cloud folder daily. Remote access is not a backup
Never copy the live data folder to a home laptop over a shared folder while Tally is running, and never work on a copied folder and paste it back. That is how company data corrupts and entries vanish
If a staff member leaves, remove their device from the Tailscale admin console and change the Tally password the same day — access ends everywhere at once
Keep the Tailscale account itself behind a strong password and two-factor authentication. It is now the front gate to your accounts office
⚠️ The shortcut to refuse: some setups open Tally's port 9000 or an RDP port on the router so home users can connect directly. That publishes your accounts server to the entire internet. With Tailscale, port 9000 is reachable only by your own signed-in devices — the port stays closed to the world.
🎥 Watch Tally From Home Working in the Full Video
The video sets up the office server and a home user on Tailscale and connects to Tally live — no static IP anywhere in the chain.
For normal voucher entry and reports, yes. Tally exchanges small amounts of data, and Tailscale usually connects the two PCs directly with WireGuard encryption, so it feels close to office speed on a decent home connection. Very large reports on a slow or relayed connection take longer — generating them through Remote Desktop on the server itself is the smoother option then.
Can two people use the same company from home at the same time?
Yes, if the office runs a multi-user Tally licence and both users are on the tailnet. Each home user connects to the same server address and opens the same company, exactly like two users on the office LAN. The licence question is Tally's, not the network's — check your edition before adding users.
What happens if the office internet goes down?
Home access pauses until the connection returns — no network method can reach a server that is itself offline. The important part is what does not happen — the data is untouched on the office disk, nobody is working on a stale copied folder, and the moment the connection is back, the same Tailscale address works again with nothing to reconfigure.
This guide is based on the Technical Anshu no static IP remote access video • Stuck on any step? Ask in the video comments — help is available there 🙏