Accounts in Lightspeed Restaurant allow you to create and manage ongoing customer tabs or charge accounts, making it easy to track purchases, issue invoices, and accept payments at a later date.  Customers can also have credit added to their accounts, which they can use toward future purchases. 

What's in this guide?

Configuring customer accounts
Managing account orders in POS
Processing an account payment in POS
Manually sending account statements and invoices
Accessing customer report in Back Office
Frequently asked questions

Configuring customer accounts

Customer accounts are ideal for regular customers or businesses that prefer to pay later or use prepaid credit. To start using customer accounts, enable the feature and configure the settings in Back Office.

Enabling Accounts in Back Office

The first step in processing account sales is to enable the Accounts feature in Back Office. This feature is available in all Lightspeed Restaurant plans. 

To enable Accounts in Back Office:

1. Log in to Back Office with your Lightspeed credentials. 
2. From the navigation menu, select Features. 
3. Search for and select Accounts. 
   
4. Click Enable.

Account sales email and statement configuration

Configure receipt delivery preferences, statement frequency, and payment details to keep customers informed and ensure timely payments. 

To configure email and statement configuration: 

1. From the navigation menu, select My Site > Site Information. 
2. Under Receipt options, select Send receipts to customers via email.
3. From the dropdown menu, choose whether to send email receipts automatically, manually, or disable them.  
   
4. Click Save. 
5. From the navigation menu, select Features. 
6. Search for and select Accounts.
7. Under Configuration, scroll down to the Account sales section and complete the following fields:
   • Statement Frequency: Set how often account statements are automatically sent to customers. These statements summarize each account's outstanding balance.
   • Payment/Bank Details: Indicate your bank information so customers can pay via transfer or direct deposit. 
   • Payment Terms: Add a reminder about payment terms, including when and how payments should be made.
     
8. (Optional) Select Statement Preview to see how statements will appear. You can also view account invoices by selecting Invoice Preview. 

An invoice will be sent or printed based on your Site Information settings (configured in steps 1-3 above) and is only sent when an order is added to a customer account on the POS.

Managing account orders in POS

After enabling the Accounts feature and setting up your preferences, you're ready to process account sales. You'll learn how to place or remove an account order in the POS.  

Placing an order in an account

This section walks you through placing an order to an account and completing it using the On Account checkout option. 

To place an order to an account: 

1. Enter the order as usual in the POS. 
2. Select Check Out > On Account. 
3. Search and select an existing account, or click New Customer to add a new account.
4. Click Save. 
   

   Customer accounts can be added from the Back Office or from the POS.

5. In the Confirm Account Identity dialog box, select Yes to proceed.  

The order is now charged to the account. If your register is set to prompt for receipts, you'll be prompted to send an invoice to the customer.

Removing an order from an account

Account orders cannot be deleted in the POS once they're completed. To remove an order from an account, first apply a payment, and then issue a refund.

To remove an order from an account: 

1. In the POS, tap the Menu (☰) icon.
2. Select Accounts.  
   
3. Select the customer account. 
4. Select the order you'd like to remove from the customer account. 
5. Click Apply Payments. 
   
6. Check out by selecting cash so the order can be refunded immediately after it's processed.
7. Tap the Menu (☰) icon. 
8. Select History. 
   
9. Locate the account sale that payments were previously applied to, then click Refund Sale.
10. Select Refund All. 
    
11. Select Cash. This was the same payment method used in step 5 for the account sale. 
    

The items in the order will then appear with a minus in front to illustrate that they have been refunded.

Processing an account payment in POS

Account payments can be made fully or partially in the POS. If a customer partially pays an account order, it will appear as Part Paid in the account summary. Payments support all standard methods, including cash, credit cards, and bank deposits. 

Account sales do not support split payments at checkout. To handle multiple payments for a single order, you can place the full order on the account and then apply a partial payment separately using different payment methods as needed.

To process an account payment:

1. In the POS, tap the Menu (☰) icon.
2. Select Account.
3. (Optional) Alternatively, you can access the accounts by finding it under the Orders tab. 

   

4. Select the account you’d like to process payment for. 
5. Click Apply Payments.
   
6. Enter the amount the customer would like to pay, then tap OK.  
   
   
7. Check out using the customer's preferred payment method.  

Manually sending account statements and invoices

While account statements and emails can be sent automatically based on your settings, you can also manually send a statement or invoice from the POS upon customer request. 

To send account statements and invoices: 

1. In the POS, tap the Menu (☰) icon. 
2. Select Accounts.  
   
3. Select the customer account. 
4. Select the cogwheel icon in the lower right corner. 
   
5. Select Send Statement to send a summary of unpaid items. Note that it won't include a tax invoice number.  
   
6. If the customer would like an invoice instead, select Email invoice. This will send the individual order total to be paid and the invoice number. 

Accessing customer report in Back Office

This section guides you through accessing and reviewing all paid customer account transactions in Back Office. For reports on unpaid or outstanding balances, refer to our article on account sales or individual customer account sales in Insights. 

To access customer report in Back Office:

1. Log in to Back Office with your Lightspeed credentials. 
2. From the navigation menu, select People > Customers. 
   
3. Search for the customer. 
4. Click on the receipt icon on the right of the customer's name. This will take you to the Customer History section, where you can view all on-account orders paid by the customer. 
   
5. Click the magnifying glass icon to the right of a paid account to preview the items in the sale. 
   
6. Click the receipt icon to the right of a customer account sale to open it, then email or preview the sale as PDF.

   

Frequently asked questions

What's next?