Powering the books behind India's foundational literacy mission

Rishu Aggarwal, Associate Director of Finance
Company: Central Square Foundation, Educational Non-Profit

Use case: I2P Accounts Payable Automation, Reimbursements, FCRA & Domestic Book Compliance
ERP: Tally

The Before

Every expense answering to multiple masters and all of it entered by hand.

A single travel expense at CSF carries four identities at once: a statutory category for the auditor, a location for project reporting, a donor for grant accountability, and a book (domestic or FCRA) for the regulator. Multiply that by ~3,000 reimbursements a year, 60–70 projects across 11 states, and 28+ donors who each report in their own format. Result? An accounting process the finance team kept chasing.

Despite this, the team managed it rigorously, but the machinery around that rigour was manual. Reimbursements flowed through an HRIS never designed for expense management. Employees uploaded PDFs, managers approved on screen, and finance re-entered every transaction into Tally by hand. Narrations were typed one at a time, and consistency suffered. An employee travelling 45 days could scan the same bill twice and nothing would catch it. And when auditors called, the compressed timelines income tax and FCRA departments now allow, retrieval meant reconstructing trails across systems that didn't talk to each other.

And the alternatives fell short. CSF evaluated Happay, TripGain, and others but all built travel-first, with Tally integrations that didn't hold up. For a nonprofit where a compliance gap has consequential effects, that was disqualifying.

What Changed

₹179 CR+ managed annually
28+ donors across FCRA and domestic books
60–70 active projects across 11 states
~3,000 reimbursements a year
6-member finance team

1. The four-dimensional entry, automated - Pazy captures the statutory layer automatically: category, narration, invoice scanning, GST logic. The team focuses only on what genuinely needs their judgment - which donor, which project, which book. The custodianship stays human; the clerical burden doesn't.
   
   

2. NGO compliance logic, built in. Not bolted on - CSF doesn't claim GST credit like a commercial entity, charges GST on rental income, and applies reverse charge on transport and legal vendors. Pazy's team configured all of it inside the system - automatic RCM calculation, reversal, and GST reported as cost. Flowing straight into Tally.
   
   

3. Retrieval built for regulators who don't wait - Income tax and FCRA departments now give very limited response time, and standalone Tally can't answer it. Every document sits in the cloud, correlated to its Tally voucher,  auditors take a daybook dump and match it directly to Pazy's records, from statutory audit to ITR-7 to 28 donors' individual formats.
   
   

4. Duplicates caught at submission, not at audit - An employee back from 45 days of travel can scan the same bill twice; the old HRIS flow would never know. Pazy reads every invoice on entry - dates, amounts, components and flags duplicates before they touch the books.
   
   

5. One platform for every rupee going out - Vendor payments across ~500 vendors and 50-odd grantees, plus all employee reimbursements, now run through Pazy. Payroll being the sole exception. One approval trail, one record from submission to Tally voucher.
   
   

6. Adoption without a change-management project - An app on the phone, a claim submitted in seconds, nothing to train for - usable across every band and designation, not just finance. At 287 employees, uptake just happened.
   
   

7. A team that leaves by six - Errors down, narration consistent, accuracy up and bandwidth shifted from data entry to analysis. The team's own unprompted verdict: now we can leave the office by 5 or 6 p.m.

> "For people who understand their accounting structure in Tally, Pazy is just like a genie. It processes all the entries seamlessly. There is no error at all."

Why Pazy, specifically?

"There are very few FinTech teams who understand technology and also understand accounts, financial reporting and management. I feel that is what sets Pazy apart. They have people with finance and accounting knowledge that can translate to tech, which is very rare."

1. It covered the whole outflow, not just travel - CSF evaluated Happay, TripGain, and others, but every option was travel-led. Pazy was the only one where vendor management stood ahead of reimbursements, showing  the full payables picture, not an expense tool stretched to fit.

2. The Tally integration actually held up - Happay's Tally sync didn't pass muster; Pazy's went live by the watch in under 15 minutes, and entries have flowed error-free since. For a CA who calls Tally-fluency the real test of an AP tool, that was decisive.

3. An implementation team that speaks accounting - Pazy’s sales team handed over CSF’s account to specialists who understood books, not just software. People who grasped RCM and NGO-specific GST treatment the way a fellow accountant would, and configured it without a workaround.

4. A bet he took with eyes open - An 18–24 month old company sat in his risk register; how long do young software companies last? He weighed it and chose Pazy anyway: the product depth and the team behind it outweighed the vintage. Six months in, the entry hasn't moved.

5. Polish that earns adoption - His three tests for any software: positive intent, practical results, presentation. Pazy cleared the third the way MMT or Paytm do - instantly usable on a phone, presentable to every employee, not just finance. He liked the product before the demo was even done.

   
   

> "Income tax and FCRA departments give very limited time today. If you don't have your documentation retrievable in seconds, you're in a dangerous situation. I'd say Pazy is highly recommended from the very first days of setting up an NGO. Even before your licenses come through.”