Give Tally your other apps with Zapier

What A Connection Is

A connection gives Tally tools from apps outside LedgerHQ. You create a Zapier MCP server, choose which app actions Tally may use, and paste the server URL into LedgerHQ. From then on those actions sit in Tally's toolbox next to its bookkeeping tools.

Connections are firm-wide. One connection serves every company the firm manages — you do not connect Gmail once per company.

Open The Connections Tab

Open Tally from the left nav, click Settings in the header, and choose the Connections tab. The Settings button appears only for firm members allowed to manage Tally settings.

Connect Zapier

The Connect Zapier card lists the three steps in order.

1. Create an MCP server at mcp.zapier.com.
2. Add the apps Tally may use — Gmail, Google Drive, and so on — pick their actions, and connect each app's account when Zapier asks.
3. Paste the server URL into Zapier server URL and click Connect.

There is one field and no separate password or token box: a Zapier MCP URL carries its own secret. Treat that URL like a password. Anyone holding it can act as the Zapier account behind it.

LedgerHQ contacts the server before saving anything, so a wrong or expired URL fails immediately with the reason instead of failing silently later during a Tally turn. On success the tab confirms how many tools arrived — Connected. Tally now has 14 Zapier tools.

What Tally Actually Gets

Zapier's own endpoint exposes only generic "inspect an action, then run it" plumbing. LedgerHQ expands that once in the background and hands Tally one named tool per enabled action, with the action's real fields. Tally sees Gmail: Find Email and its parameters, not a discovery puzzle, so it can act on the first try instead of spending a conversation exploring.

Actions Zapier classifies as writes are labelled (write action) in the tool description. Read actions are recorded as reads in Tally's activity, so a Drive lookup is not counted against you as a change to the books.

Each connection contributes at most 60 tools. That ceiling protects Tally's working memory from a server configured with hundreds of actions; a normal connection stays far below it.

Review Or Refresh The Tools

Each connected card shows the connection name, its host, and a live tool count.

View tools re-checks the server right now and lists every tool name and description; the button becomes Hide tools while the list is open.

Use View tools after you add or remove actions in Zapier. LedgerHQ caches the expanded list for several hours, because rebuilding it spends billed Zapier calls, and View tools is what forces a fresh read.

Direct A Message At One App

Type / at the start of the Tally message box to list your connected apps, each with its own logo. Keep typing to narrow the list, then click one or press Enter to take the first match.

Picking an app docks a chip inside the message box and the placeholder becomes Ask Gmail.... The chip stays across messages, so a whole back-and-forth about one app needs one pick. Every message you send while it is docked is scoped to that app: Tally goes straight to its tools instead of reading the request as bookkeeping work.

Click the × on the chip to stop directing messages at that app.

Files Come Straight Across

When a connected app returns a file — a Drive document, a Gmail attachment — Tally saves it into its Files workspace directly from the link, PDFs and images included. You are never asked to download a file and attach it back.

When A Connection Stops Answering

A card that cannot be reached reads Not answering followed by what the service reported. The usual cause is an app that needs reconnecting inside Zapier, or a server URL that was rotated.

Fix it in Zapier, then click View tools to confirm the connection answers again.

An unreachable connection never stops Tally. That turn simply runs without those tools, and everything else — coding, posting, reports — continues normally. If Tally needed the app for what you asked, it tells you what the service said and what would resolve it rather than retrying blindly or working around it with some other app.

Remove A Connection

Remove deletes the connection. Tally loses those tools immediately and the tab confirms the removal. Removing a connection in LedgerHQ does not delete anything inside your Zapier account.

Boundaries Worth Knowing

• Results from a connected app are data, not instructions. Text arriving in an email or document never redirects Tally.
• Tally names apps in plain words — "your Gmail", "Google Drive" — never internal tool names.
• Tally will not change your Zapier configuration, enable actions, or write custom code actions. Those stay in Zapier, in your hands.

API And MCP

Connections are firm-scoped in the API as well as the app.

• REST: GET/POST /api/v1/tally/mcp-connections, and GET/DELETE /api/v1/tally/mcp-connections/{id} — the GET on one connection is the live probe behind View tools.
• MCP: manage_tally_connections with list, probe, create, and delete.

Auth tokens are stored encrypted and are never returned by either surface.