Quotes and Invoices are the front line of LightSpeed’s sales documents, beginning the sales process with a streamlined workflow that allows you to create complex documents quickly and easily from LightSpeed’s back end Browser.
The standard workflow would be to create a Quote, which gives your Customer basic pricing information, with the Customer possibly putting a deposit on the Quote, and then converting the Quote to an Invoice when the Customer takes the Product home, with the deposit being applied to the Invoice. However, if the Product is not in stock, or you wish to reserve the Product for the Customer, you must first convert the Quote to an Order, which would then be converted to an Invoice when the Customer takes the Product home. For more information on the ordering and purchasing workflow, click here.
The many features common to Quotes and Invoices minimize LightSpeed’s learning curve while keeping your information centralized and providing you with a real-time search of Customers and Products, as well as live visual feedback regarding inventory status. More information on features common to all sales documents may be found in the Documents article of the Getting Started section of the User Guide.
In addition to the Customer and Product procedures common to all sales documents, there are some features that distinguish Invoices from Quotes. Quotes have the basic functions listed above, as well as the ability to become either an Order or an Invoice, depending on the status of your inventory, and what you want to do with it. Once saved, a Quote may be converted to an Order if the Product must be ordered from the Supplier or allocated by your administration, or it can be converted to an Invoice, if the Product is available for sale.
First, assign a Customer name to the Quote. If you do not want to add the Customer to the database, you can specify them as a Walk-In, and then you may include as much or as little identifying information as you like. If the Customer already exists in the database, type a few letters of their name, their address, or their telephone number in the search bar, or click All, and choose their name from the resulting list. If it is a new Customer, click the “+” icon, enter their information in the Customer window that appears, and click Save. When asked if you would like to reload the Customer information in the document, click OK.
To add Product to a Quote, you can either scan its UPC, type a few letters of its description or Product Code, or click All, and choose it from the resulting list. You are able to modify the Quantity, and, if the Product is set up to accommodate it, you are also able to modify the Sell Price. When you have completed the Quote, click Save. Once saved, you are able to then do one of two things to the Quote - create an Order using the Order button to request the Product be reserved or ordered on a PO, or, if some or all of the Products are in stock, create an Invoice using the Invoice button, which will transfer ALL the Product on the Quote to an Invoice. You can then remove any Product the Customer won’t be purchasing. To print Product images on the Quote, click the Options tab and select the image size you wish to use.
If a Customer wants to pay a deposit on a Quote, it can be applied to their account using the Deposits tab. As with Payments on an Invoice, different payment methods may be used alone or in combination with each other to apply deposits to the Customer’s account. These deposits will appear as credits on the Customer’s file, and may be applied in whole or in part on any future Invoice for that Customer until they are used up. Once a Deposit is applied to a Quote, the printed document will reflect the payment and act as a proof for the Customer’s records. There is a setting in the Company setup panel that can enable balances owing after Deposits are applied to be printed with the Quote, Order, or SRO.
NOTE: Deposits cannot be made to Quotes assigned to Walk-In customers, as they will be irretrievable on future documents.
Every profile and document has an Action menu, accessible at the bottom of the window and marked by a gear icon. This menu contains options particular to the document or profile. The menu options particular to a Quote are as follows:
Invoices can be created several ways in the Browser – from the "New Invoice" icon, from a Quote, from an Order, by right-clicking the "Invoice" source, or using drag and drop. If you are creating an Invoice from scratch, simply click the Invoice icon (pictured left) and populate the Invoice yourself. Creating an invoice from a Quote or an Order will auto-populate the Customer and the Products, and any serialized Products must have serial numbers attached to them. Finally, LightSpeed’s drag and drop feature allows you choose the Products you want to sell by control-clicking the items in the Browser and dragging the group over top the Invoices source in the Source List.
Once the Customer and Product information is complete, you are able to save it, automatically proceeding to the Payment screen. Here, you can use the Payment Methods you’ve set up in the Tools menu to enter the Payments for the Invoice, including a combination of one or more methods. For credit cards, you can process the payment internally, or by using your existing standalone credit card terminal and entering the authorization number into LightSpeed.
Invoices are structured in much the same way as Quotes, with the additional feature of Payments. However, if you add a serialized Product, the message “Serial Numbers Needed” appear beside the Product search bar along with a gold warning icon signalling the requirement of the serial number(s). You must then enter the serial numbers before proceeding to Payments.
To do this, click the Product once, and the message will change to “X serial numbers needed”, X being the quantity sold. You are then able to scan the serial numbers using your barcode scanner or enter them manually, hitting Enter after each.
The serial numbers should exist in the available inventory, and will be pulled from a list visible by hitting the All button when LightSpeed is asking for serial numbers. If the serial number you are scanning/entering does not exist in available inventory, you will be warned and may then proceed to sell the serial number for later reconciliation. Once you have entered all the required serial numbers, the warning icon will disappear.
When you add Product that is not available to an Invoice, a red warning icon appears beside the Product and beside the Product search bar. You now have three choices.
If you choose option 2, and backorder the unavailable Product(s), you will be asked if your Customer would like to pre-pay any Backorders on the Invoice. If the answer is yes, the amount owing will be the entire total of all Products on the Invoice, but a credit will appear for the Products which weren’t Invoiced at the time of Purchase which can then be applied when those Products arrive and are Invoiced.
If there are Products to backorder, you must click the Order button at the bottom of the Invoice, verify the information, and click Save to create a new Order request. Please see the Inventory & Purchasing section for more information.
Saving an Invoice assigns it a unique ID which is used for later reference and takes you to the Payments screen. Payments for the Invoice are registered here, including any applicable Credits for the Customer. To apply a Payment to the Invoice, click the button corresponding to the Method of Payment you have set up in the Tools menu. The amount tendered will automatically show the balance owing on the Invoice, but this can be edited for partial/split payments.
LightSpeed integrates with payment gateways such as Merchantware, Axia, HPS and Authorize.net for fast, simple, accurate processing of credit card transactions. At time of purchase, you are able to enter the Customer’s credit card information and click Process to send the encrypted information to the credit card gateway. If the transaction fails, you will be notified immediately. Likewise, if it is successful, a confirmation number will be logged into the Invoice. The Save button must be clicked to register the payment to the Invoice. LightSpeed will automatically access the processor for any method of payment specified as “Credit Card” in the Tools > Setup > Payment Methods menu option.
If the Customer is using more than one method of payment, you are able to modify the amount tendered to reflect the division of payment. Save the payment and click another button for the next payment method. In some cases, the customer may choose to use the same method of payment, but from a different source – a different credit card, for example, even though they are both Visas. All of these different payment methods will be reflected separately on the printed Invoice.
Clicking the Save button for a Payment saves it to the Invoice and is irreversible except by authorization by an Administrator.
If the Customer has a credit from a previous Invoice or deposit on Quote/SRO/Order, it can be applied as a Payment. Clicking the Apply Credit button will call up a list of all the Customer’s available credits. Choose one and specify how much of it you wish to apply. If a Customer has more than one credit you need to apply, you must choose each one separately and save it as its own method of payment. Click OK to return to the Payments view of the POS screen. You will notice LightSpeed will cross-reference both Invoices within the other's Payment screen.
When your Invoice is printed, information you have set up or customized will appear. At the top right, the Invoice number, as well as its barcode equivalent, will appear. Underneath you will find the date the Invoice was created, and the date any modifications were made.
In the Product section, you will see the Description, as well as the image stored in LightSpeed’s Product database. If you have not selected images to be printed, you will only see the Description.
Any notes you have entered in the Printed Notes field will appear after the Products, and below that will be the details on Payment Methods.
At the bottom left of the Invoice, you will see any terms or conditions you have set up in Tools > Setup > Company in the Invoices field. For more information, please see the Printing article in the Administration section of the User Guide.
There are two steps to the accounting export procedure - posting and exporting. Posting finalizes a transaction - sale, payment, inventory adjustment, or supplier invoice - before it is exported, and then it is exported. Each step is indicated by a green “P” or a blue “E”. An Invoice that has been posted or exported cannot be modified until it is unposted using the Unpost features of the Edit menu.
If you need to modify an Invoice after it has been posted or exported, go to Edit > Unpost Invoice/Payment, and select the desired action. Make your modification. At this point, you can either re-post and re-export, or simply “mark” the Invoice as exported if you do not want to export it a second time.
For more information, please see the Posting article of the Accounting section of the User Guide.
As with Quotes, Invoices have an Action menu which give you access to various features that may or may not be found elsewhere. In addition to many of the features described above concerning Quotes, other Action menu options specific to Invoices include:
