Should I import bank statements into Tally as XML or Excel?

TallyPrime has no built-in Excel import for vouchers. Bringing a spreadsheet in means either buying an import utility, using a TDL add-on, or retyping — which is the work you were trying to avoid. XML is Tally's own interchange format and imports through a menu that ships with the product, so exporting Tally XML skips that whole layer.

That makes the choice simple in practice. Posting the transactions into your books? Use XML. Each line arrives as a Receipt or Payment voucher against your bank ledger, ready to reclassify. Analysing rather than posting? Use Excel or CSV — filtering a client's spend, sharing a working file, or building a summary is far easier in a spreadsheet than in Tally.

There is one case for both: convert once, export twice. The same conversion produces both files, so you can post the XML into TallyPrime and keep the Excel copy as a working paper for the client — without converting the statement a second time.

Whichever you choose, the figures are identical. Amounts are reconciled against the running balance before either export is generated, so the spreadsheet and the vouchers always agree.