How to move from Marg ERP to 399Apps: a step-by-step migration guide
Short answer
To move from Marg ERP to 399Apps, export your masters (parties, items and stock), opening balances and outstanding invoices from Marg to Excel/CSV, clean the sheets, then import them into Nidhi Books and reconcile against your Marg trial balance and stock report. Pick a clean cut-over date — usually a month or quarter start — and run both systems in parallel for one cycle before going fully live. Guided onboarding support is available for larger datasets.
Updated 2026-07-09 · 399Apps · General GST information, not tax advice
How to migrate from Marg ERP to 399Apps: step by step
You migrate by exporting your data out of Marg and importing it into Nidhi Books — there is no automatic one-click pull from a Marg installation, so a tidy export and a clear cut-over date keep your books clean. Guided onboarding support is available if your dataset is large or complex.
- 1
Pick a cut-over date and back up Marg
Choose a clean cut-over date — the start of a month or, ideally, a financial quarter or year — so you do not split a tax period across two systems. Take a full backup of your Marg company data first so your existing records stay safe whatever happens.
- 2
Export your masters from Marg to Excel
From Marg ERP, export your party (customer and supplier) details with GSTIN and state, and your item / stock master. Marg lets you export most reports and masters to Excel — export each to Excel or CSV. These become the contact and item masters in Nidhi Books.
- 3
Export opening balances and outstanding invoices
Export your Trial Balance as on the cut-over date for opening balances, your current stock valuation for opening stock, and your Outstanding (receivables and payables) statements so unpaid customer and supplier invoices carry over. These let Nidhi Books open with the same balances your CA signed off in Marg.
- 4
Clean and standardise the exported sheets
Open each export and tidy it: one row per record, consistent GSTIN and state formatting, valid HSN/SAC codes, and no merged cells or sub-totals left over from Marg’s report layout. Clean data here is the single biggest factor in a smooth import.
- 5
Set up your 399Apps account and company profile
Create your 399Apps account, add Nidhi Books, and enter your company GSTIN, state, financial-year start and invoice numbering series so GST invoices and GSTR exports are correct from day one. Add team members — there is no per-user charge, so everyone who used Marg can have their own login, unlike Marg’s per-user licensing.
- 6
Import your masters and opening balances
Bring your cleaned customer, supplier and item masters into Nidhi Books, then enter or import opening balances, opening stock and the outstanding invoice list as on your cut-over date. For larger or more complex datasets, email [email protected] and the team will help scope and run the import with you.
- 7
Reconcile, run in parallel, then go live
Check that the trial balance, stock and outstanding totals in Nidhi Books match Marg on the cut-over date. Raise your new invoices in 399Apps from that date, keep Marg installed read-only as an archive, and once a full GST period reconciles cleanly, switch over completely.
Why move from Marg ERP to the cloud
Marg ERP 9+ is a capable, feature-dense Windows accounting, inventory and billing package — especially strong in pharma, distribution and wholesale. But it is installed on the PCs it is licensed to, and it is licensed per user, often with an annual maintenance charge (AMC). To work from home, a second branch or a phone you need a remote-desktop setup or synced data, and each extra seat adds licence cost.
399Apps runs in any browser, so your books are reachable from any device with no per-PC licence and no AMC. For a general small business that has outgrown a single Marg installation — added a second location, a remote accountant, or a team that all needs access, and that does not need the full depth of a distribution ERP — moving to cloud accounting removes the “whose computer has the latest data” problem and the per-seat cost of scaling Marg.
What carries over — and what to leave behind
A practical migration moves the data you need to keep operating and stay compliant, not every historical voucher. Carry over your current masters and balances; keep older history in your Marg backup as an archive.
- • Carry over: customer and supplier masters (with GSTIN and state), item / stock master with HSN/SAC, opening balances and opening stock as on the cut-over date, and outstanding receivables and payables.
- • Optional: a few months of recent transactions if you want continuity in reports — but this is rarely necessary if your opening balances are correct.
- • Leave behind (as an archive): years of historical vouchers, closed financial years, and Marg-specific configurations. Keep your Marg backup so you can always look them up.
- • Re-create in 399Apps, do not import: your invoice numbering series, GST rates and tax settings, and user logins — these are quick to set up correctly and should not be force-fitted from Marg.
How long does a Marg-to-399Apps migration take
For a typical small business, the data work is a few hours to a day or two: most of the time goes into cleaning the exported sheets, not the import itself. A clean party and item list, an accurate trial balance and a matching stock valuation on the cut-over date are what make it fast.
The safe approach is to import masters, opening balances and opening stock, then run 399Apps alongside Marg for one GST period (a month, or a quarter under QRMP). Once that period reconciles, you retire Marg for daily use. Larger or messier datasets — or deep distribution inventory — take longer, and that is exactly when guided onboarding support pays off.
Common Marg migration mistakes to avoid
Most migration pain comes from data hygiene and timing, not the software. Avoiding these keeps your first GST return after the move clean:
- • Cutting over mid-period: starting on the 14th of a month splits one GST return across Marg and 399Apps. Cut over on a period boundary instead.
- • Importing dirty exports: merged cells, sub-total rows and inconsistent GSTIN/state formatting from a Marg report layout will break an import. Flatten and standardise first.
- • Forgetting opening stock: Marg users often track detailed inventory — reconcile your stock valuation, not just the trial balance, so item quantities and values open correctly in Nidhi Books.
- • Skipping the trial-balance reconciliation: if you do not confirm opening balances match Marg on the cut-over date, every later report inherits the gap.
- • Deleting Marg too early: keep it installed read-only as an archive until at least one full GST period has reconciled in 399Apps.
After you migrate: Marg vs 399Apps day to day
Once you are live, the daily experience changes in a few concrete ways. You bill and reconcile in a browser from any device, your whole team has a login at no extra cost, and GST work stays in one place: Nidhi Books raises GST-compliant invoices with HSN/SAC and place-of-supply handling, tracks TDS, and exports GSTR-1 (B2B, B2C, credit/debit notes and HSN summary) and the GSTR-3B outward-supplies summary as CA-friendly CSV. Marg remains a strong fit for pharma and distribution businesses that rely on its deep ERP features — batch/expiry tracking, complex schemes and distributor order flows — so weigh those needs before you fully retire it.
How 399Apps helps
Nidhi Books (by 399Apps) is cloud GST accounting from ₹399/month with unlimited users (prices exclude GST) — GST invoicing, GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B exports, TDS and audit-grade CSV exports, reachable from any browser, with no per-PC licence and no AMC. Migration from Marg is a guided Excel/CSV import of your masters, stock and balances — it is assisted, not one-click. For larger datasets, write to [email protected] and the team will scope and run it with you.
Migrate from Marg ERP to 399Apps — frequently asked questions
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GST billing, returns & e-invoicing — done automatically
Nidhi Books raises GST-compliant invoices and prepares GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B exports, with unlimited users from ₹399/month for your first app (+₹99/month per add-on, prices exclude GST). Free for 14 days.