This is my 3rd POS

Great integrated system

Lightspeed has been great. We have been using it for over a year and it has met my expectations. Whenever I request help, which isn't that often anymore they are quick to respond.

Pros

The best feature of LIghtspeed is the analytics package. As a senior manager you can spend a lot of time calculating your performance manually in excel. But the Analytics package takes care of all of that. It's easy to see the performance of your inventory, employees and marketing at any time. There are also a lot of apps that work with Lightspeed that make it the most functional POS system I've used. The fact that the ecommerce is integrated as well makes it a great fully integrated system. You could pay a lot more to piece together all the of the systems you need. Or you could spend a huge amount of money creating a custom system.

Cons

There are some small idiosyncrasies like not adjusting sync times for your local time zone. So, yesterday is never accurate you have to wait for the next days sync to get have accurate information. I would also like to be able to have our time management app sync employee time to Lightspeed so we don't have to enter it manually. I've given up on tracking employee hourly performance for this reason. Or if they offered a better time clock management natively that would help. I'd also like them to include the previous year comparisons in their dashboard. And, I'd like to look at seasonal performance rather than just month to month and week to week.

A great all-inclusive system

Our industry was using a server-based software which was cumbersome and VERY outdated. Switching to Lightspeed has allowed me to more easily fulfil online orders, process transactions remotely, and communicate with our customer base more effectively.

Pros

Integration across POS, eCommerce, Accounting, Data Analytics is excellent. We have been able to increase both sales and efficiency with this system. The accounting feature and its daily export to QuickBooks allows me to spend only a few minutes each day keeping books up to date. It certainly makes year-end a breeze. Lightspeed Analytics is an invaluable resource for forecasting and identifying areas of opportunity. Customer support is available 24/7 and if they aren't able to answer my question immediately, I have received a timely follow-up within a day or two.

Cons

There are some work-arounds that I have implemented. It would be nice to have the option for recurring billing and serial number tracking (not just adding a serial number to an item) as well as a better protocol for backordered items on Purchase Orders.

The Point of Sale solution

Overall, the software does a great job in helping Accountants, managers and front liners in the Retail industry. What's great is that it integrates with ECommerce to be more efficient in selling your products out there, not just from the brick and mortar setup, but in the online as well.

Pros

I tinkered with this software and got ot know this from the inside and out. I like the functionalities as it allows you to break free from the spreadsheet and manual entry. Gone are the days of tallying and doing adjustments on a piece of paper. It has filter functions for reporting, it auto calculates taxes by assigning it in the initial setup, browser printing integration, you can conveniently import inventory from a csv file to your POS system and export those reports in a csv format. The hardware associated to it works seamlessly like the tablets, scanners, and printers. Although , it endorses Apple products, it works perfectly fine with Windows operating systems. It also has a companion product which is called Lightspeed Accounting that is comparable to Quickbooks

Cons

A few bugs are slowly being fixed as each maintenance and update is released, just like any other software. Although workarounds can be done to remedy it, but you'd have to seek assistance from Tech Support.

Access to information at your fingertips

Helped with better tracking of margin and inventory. We have really done a better job of inventory tracking and inventory management. Allows us to look at real time margin and make adjustments as needed.

Pros

Easy to access information from sales to margins to reports that really help us optimize our business

Cons

Some of the upload of inventory and how it is titled. Not having a trade in function.