TrainingUser Guide

2. Important Things to Consider

Introduction

As with any software, and when making decisions about workflows and best practises, there are some important points to keep in mind when configuring and using LightSpeed. This is a brief overview of some basic concepts, both general and specific to LightSpeed. It is recommended that you are aware of these suggestions, and make up your own mind as to the degree you choose to implement them. They cover the entire range of features of the software, and though their presentation here is cursory, you may usually find more information in each section's individual articles.

THE NUMBER ONE RULE

The number one rule that you must incorporate into your daily routine is to perform both regular and manual backups to your database. Anytime you make changes to your database that affect a large number of items, you should be in the habit of doing a manual backup just prior. If an error is made, this gives you, and Xsilva Support, the option to restore an earlier version of your database, and frequent manual backups minimize the amount of data entry required to make your data current. Of course, it's also essential to set LightSpeed to do automatic, periodic backups as well. For more information on backing up LightSpeed, please see the Backing Up article.

Customers

  • It is recommended that you and your staff be very careful not to create multiple Customer cards for the same company or individual. Doing so fractures their purchase history and provides an incomplete picture of their outstanding balances and credits, which can create a confusing and frustrating experience for the customer, the sales rep, the accountant, and the manager/owner. Reconciling multiple Customer cards into one is possible with the Merge Customer feature, but it is best to avoid creating duplicate Customer records from the beginning.  
  • For more information, please see Customers.

Products

  • A Product's attributes are "fused" to a document when it's added. For this reason, it is especially important that serialized Products have the "Serialized" checkbox checked before they are added to a PO or an Invoice. Serializing a Product card after it's been received or sold can create confusion in its history and on reports. 
  • Products cannot be deleted once they are received on a PO or sold on an Invoice. 
  • Products can be made "invisible" (unfound in searches) by deselecting the "Current" attribute in the Product card. Non-current Products will appear in regular searches if they have quantities in stock. Non-current Products can be searched in the Browser by choosing "Non-current" in the Product search filter. 
  • Only official UPC codes can be used in the UPC field of the Product card for label printing and scanning to function; they cannot be auto-generated. 
  • For more information, please see Products.

Costs

  • Products that do not have a Cost associated in the Product card will be received or sold with a cost of zero, and 100% margin. 
  • Products sold or received at zero Cost can be tracked and fixed in the Troubleshooting section, found at Tools > Utilities > Troubleshooting, or by modifying the Cost on the Invoice or Purchase Order. This should automatically update the Product's inventory history, found in the Inventory tab of the Product card. 
  • Inventory adjustments done with a Cost of zero cannot be modified, so a new adjustment must be made to the value of a Product's existing stock. 
  • Be very careful of any Products having a zero Cost.  
  • Checking the Cost Always Equals Sell attribute in a Product card will automatically have the Sell Price entered as the Cost on any sales document (Quote, Order, Invoice, SRO) it's attached to. 
  • For more information, please see Costs and Prices.

Returns, Exchanges & Refunds

  • Customers returning Products who want to retain a credit on account rather than take a refund must have a Customer card to which this credit may be applied. The original Invoice may be sold to a "Walk-In", but you must create a Customer card on the return Invoice in order to access that credit at a later date.  
  • For more information, please see Returns & Exchanges.

Shipping

  • Shipping charges are added to Customer Invoices or Supplier Invoices by creating a Shipping Product, a non-inventoried, usually non-taxed Product that is priced and added to Customer or Supplier Invoices in order to charge or pay shipping. 

Credit Card Processing

  • American merchants using internal credit card processing to process payments must process a void of the entire original transaction on a second, returning Invoice if the payment has not yet settled (ie. same day or thereabouts), and then process a third Invoice from scratch, or may do a partial refund on the second (returning) Invoice if the payment has settled. 
  • Refunds require the copy and paste of the original transaction authorization. 
  • Refunds of deposits processed on Quotes, Orders, or SROs should be processed as a negative payment on an Invoice. 
  • While it is the default setting of most payment gateways to settle at the end of each business day, it is recommended that you confirm your payments have settled daily until you are satisfied the process is complete. 
  • In order for an internally processed credit card payment to be valid, you must receive an authorization number once the payment is processed. If you are not notified of this number, the payment was not processed. 
  • Accounts arranged with payment gateways should be retail, card-present, live accounts. 
  • Testing may be done, but it is necessary to modify the credit card setup panel in LightSpeed to "sandbox", using a live (not test) account from the processor/gateway. 

Deletions

  • While documents, including Invoices, can be deleted, it is recommended that Invoices are voided rather than deleted, with a note attached explaining the situation. Invoices may only be voided once all the Products are removed from it. 
  • You cannot delete an Invoice that has a Payment applied to it. 
  • You cannot delete a Product if it has been received on a Purchase Order or sold on an Invoice. 
  • Rather than delete a Product, you can make it "non-current" and, provided it has no inventory, it will not show up in Browser or POS searches (see: Tools > Setup > Basics > Company > Searching) 
  • It is not recommended that you delete Terms, Suppliers, Customers, Invoices, Payments, Payment Methods, Users, Purchase Orders, or anything else in the software that affects inventory, accounting exports, processed sales, etc. 

Accounting Exports

  • Once a Payment, Invoice, Supplier Invoice, or Inventory Adjustment is posted and exported, no alterations should be made that will affect any information in your accounting software. If you must make a profound alteration, you must be sure that it is reflected in your accounting software. 
  • Transactions that are posted but not yet exported may be modified, but you must repost the transaction in order for the export done on the appropriate date range to "see" the transaction and include it in the export. 
  • Once a transaction is posted, it is invisible to the posting processing. Once it is exported, it is invisible to the exporting process. 
  • Create a dummy Product and a dummy Customer, then process a sale, a payment, a purchase, and an inventory adjustment. Practise an export/import with this data and then analyze your Chart of Accounts to make sure you are aware of all numbers. 
  • Do not import the same information into your accounting software twice. 
  • If your accounting export involves files being saved to your hard drive, do not delete these files. Create an organized storage system (usually by date) from which you can easily reference a particular file if necessary. 
  • Be sure that the date range of your export is the same date range as you've posted. 
  • For more information, please see Accounting.

Importing

  • LightSpeed will import tab-separated and comma-separated text files. 
  • Once you have alligned your source and target fields in Import Tools, save them as a preset in case you must re-do the import. 
  • It is recommended that if you have a large amount of data to import, you copy and paste the first few lines of your spreadsheet into a new file, and import just a few records to begin with. Confirm everything is placing where you expect, and then import your entire file. 
  • The most recently imported/updated items may easily be found and deleted in the Browser using the pop-up menu near the top. 
  • Matrix Child Products can be imported and attributed to a Master. 
  • For more information, please see Importing. 

General

  • Be sure to back up regularly, at least once a day. Enable the live backups of LightSpeed, and schedule regular backups of the backup onto a separate volume. 
  • Perform a live backup before you attempt a large import, any upgrade to LightSpeed, or any modification to significant amounts of data. (eg. using Set Selling Prices to modify all your prices, or adjusting inventory levels using Count Inventory)
  • Having a large number of Trackers installed, or having Trackers with many items, can affect the performance of any Browser-related functions. 
  • Advanced features available in the Tax setup panel are not required for most LightSpeed users. Contact Xsilva's Support department if you are unsure how to configure this panel, or see the Configuration I or Taxes articles of this section of the User Guide.