Product variants help you manage products that come in different sizes, flavors, or other variable attributes. They allow you to group these variations under a single product button on the POS, keeping your menu organized and your workflows efficient.

What’s in this guide?

Common uses for product variants
Setting up product variants
Adding product variants to an order
Removing a product variant from an order
Frequently asked questions

Common uses for product variants

• Wine variations: By the bottle or by the glass.
• Coffee sizes: Small, Regular, or Large.
• Gelato flavors: Vanilla, Chocolate, Pistachio, or Strawberry.
• T-Shirt sizes and colors: Orange, Grey, Small, Medium, or Large.  

Each variant becomes a product, with the ability to have different selling prices, cost prices, barcodes, SKUs, stock levels, purchasing details, and recipes.

Setting up product variants 

Setting up product variants in Back Office lets you manage multiple versions of an item under one product. This process involves creating a main product, defining attributes, and assigning values and prices to each variant.

To set up your product variants: 

1. Log in to Back Office with your Lightspeed credentials.
2. From the navigation menu, select Products > Add Products. 
3. Enter the product name, category, sales price, and sales tax.
4. Click Add Product.  
   
5. Once the product is created, click the cog wheel icon on the right.  
   
6. Under the Variants tab, enter an attribute (e.g., size, type, or flavor).  
7. Click Add.

   

   Once the attribute is added, it should look like this: 
   
8. Click Save Template at the bottom of the page.
9. In the dialog box, click Yes to confirm and create the product template.  
   
10. Under the Variants tab, click Add a new Variant. 
11. Fill in the following fields:
    • Value: This will appear as part of the variant's name on the POS or menu.
    • Sell price ($): Set a unique price for each variant, if needed. 
12. Click Add Variant.
    

    All added product variants will appear in a list like this.

Adding product variants to an order

Once your product variants are created, you can add them to an order directly from the POS. Tap the main product tile, then choose the appropriate variant to add it to the order summary. 

To add product variants to an order: 

1. On the POS, start a new order by tapping on the main product tile. 
   
2. Tap the desired variant to add it to the order summary. 
   
   

   You can rearrange how variants appear on the POS, just like regular products.

Removing a product variant from an order

If a customer changes their mind or a mistake occurs, you can remove a variant from an order, just like a regular product, directly from the order summary in the POS.

To remove a product variant from an order: 

1. Select the product variant from the order summary in the POS. This will open the edit screen for the product.
2. Tap Remove to delete the item from an order.
3. Tap Apply Changes. 
   

Frequently asked questions

What's next?