Just as the POS screen is LightSpeed’s view to the front end processes of your business, the Browser is an overview of the back end, including sales and administrative functions, as well as time and customer management features. Products, Customers, Sales Documents, Jobs, Timesheets, Trackers, and multi-store Transfers are all accessible in the Browser, as well as all of the Purchasing functions, including Orders, POs, and Suppliers.
The Browser is accessed by the magnifying glass icon titled "Browser" in the Tool Bar, or by exiting the Point of Sale screen. There are four main sections to the Browser:
Almost anything you’re looking for in LightSpeed can be found by first choosing one of the sources listed along the left side of the Browser. Selecting one of these sources will display its contents according to the filter menus located at the top of the central Main List, and will determine which data is displayed for that particular source.
The Source List is itself divided into several sections:
As mentioned above, selecting a source will display different column headings in the central Main List. These headings can be modified in length, and clicking them once will sort the list of data according to that heading in ascending order. Clicking them a second time will sort in descending order.
As a source is displayed in the Main List, filter menus located at the top near the search field will appear. Entering terms in the search field and selecting choices in the filter menus will allow you to quickly find the relevant documents you need. A filter menu contains searchable data fields found in that particular source.
When searching for a particular Product, this menu will allow you to search based on fields like Class or Description. In some cases, only one filter menu is available. However, sales documents can also be filtered based on when they were created or modified, within a pre-defined time period, or over a date range you can specify.
Use these filters to quickly sort through your entire data set and find the particular documents or profiles you’re searching. Double-click any result in this Main List section to open it.
Custom Fields you have created in the Setup panel are searchable using a filter menu.
New sales documents can be created by dragging one or more Products over to the Source List and dropped on a source. For example, using your Apple (Command) key to select an Agate bracelet and red DJ bag, you can drag and drop those over the word "Quote" in the Source List to open a new, unsaved Quote with those Products populated in it. The same can be done for Orders, Invoices, Purchase Orders, Supplier Invoices, and Transfers.
Cover Flow is a graphical layout that allows you browse through Products, Customers, and Suppliers using the images saved in their profiles. You can double-click an image to open the profile. Cover Flow can be disabled in Tools > Setup > Company > Searching.
The Preview Pane of the Browser allows you to see basic information about an item, allowing you the ability to look into a document or a profile without having to open it.
The Parking section of the Browser can be thought of as a clipboard for LightSpeed documents, allowing you drag-and-drop functionality for profiles or documents you need to reference frequently. To “park” a document, drag it from the Main List to an available space. Clicking a parked item will display it in the Preview Pane; open it by double-clicking.
Sales documents in Parking can be edited simply by dragging a Customer or Product(s) from the Main List and dropped over the document – a dialog will appear asking if you want to edit the document in question. If you answer OK, the document will open with the additions ready to be saved. Documents or profiles can be removed from Parking by clicking the “x” icon that appears on its Parking bar.
At the bottom of the Browser, there is a button labeled Smart Find. This feature allows you to configure an advanced search for Products, Customers, or documents that meet a set of criteria that you define using a series of pop-up menus. You can perform the search immediately and only once, or you can save it for repeated access to avoid having to reconfigure the search to get fresh results.
Once you have settled on your criteria, including any Custom Fields you have created, you have three choices – clicking the Find button will produce the results in the Browser; clicking the Export button will export the results of your find to a tab-delimited file; and clicking the Save button will allow you to save the criteria as a Smart Find you can name, and will be accessible in the Source List for fresh results produced each time the Smart Find is accessed below the source. Saving a Smart Find personally will display it only to you, and publicly displays it to all users.
Example: A Smart Find for Invoices based on the criteria of the status being “Owing”. Saving this Smart Find will produce an arrow icon in the Source List beside Invoices; clicking this arrow will display the Smart Find, and clicking the Smart Find will produce a list in the central Main List of all the Invoices with an “Owing” status. As soon as an Invoice is paid, its status will change and it will drop off the results of this particular Smart Find. Double-clicking the Smart Find will display how it was built, and allow for editing.
Clicking the “+” icon at the bottom of the Source List will call up a similar window, but one that will only export or save a Smart Find. To delete a Smart Find, select it in the Source List and click the “-“ icon located at the bottom of the Source List.
Clicking the spinning arrow Refresh icon will prompt the Browser to display any changes that have been made but are not yet visible.
In addition to the Smart Find and Refresh buttons in the Browser, there are many more, each having useful functions as you navigate through the software.
Similar to the Mac OS X Spotlight feature, the Search All feature, accessed in a search field located above the Preview Pane, searches through all documents, notes fields, profiles, and time-billing, and produces a list in the Main List of all items that match the search string.
If you have difficulty remembering when a particular Invoice was created or what Products it sold, but you only remember the Customer’s last name, you can search on the name to immediately produce a list of everywhere that name exists in LightSpeed, including the Invoice you were searching.
Trackers are a system of communication and information tracking in LightSpeed which allow you to “install” particular headings which, when accessed, display the relevant documents in the Browser. Trackers are User-specific; that is, each User has a set of Trackers unique to them, and only sees their Trackers when they are logged in.
For more information on using Trackers, please see the Tracking & Searching article in this section of the User Guide.
When other stores are added to yours in the Multi Store feature of LightSpeed, you will see two icons appear in the Browser tagged Transfers In and Transfers Out, allowing you to transfer stock easily from one location to another. For more information on inter-store transfers, please see the Multi-Store article in the Sales & Workflows section of the User Guide.
The Source List contains a section dedicated to Purchasing, including the ability to look at all outstanding Order Requests, Purchase Orders, and Supplier Invoices. In fact, clicking the Order Requests or Actions tabs will produce two new buttons at the bottom of the Browser: Cancel Request and Generate PO.
For more information on ordering, purchasing, and Suppliers, please see the Purchasing article in the Inventory and Purchasing section of the User Guide.
A powerful feature available in the Browser is the ability to export any results that can be produced in the Main List as a tab-separated text file, including the results from simple searches, or Smart Finds.
Once you have produced a list of results in the Main List that you wish to export, click the Export button at the bottom of the Browser. A dialog box will appear asking you to save the file to your hard drive. For more information, please see the Exporting article in the Administration section of the User Guide.
