Organize similar items by adding accounting groups to categorize them for tax, printing, and reporting purposes. For example, you might create an Alcohol accounting group to apply the same tax profile and production center to all alcoholic beverages. Accounting groups can be added, edited, and deleted.

Adding accounting groups

1. Log in to your Back Office with your Lightspeed Restaurant credentials.
2. From the main navigation menu, select Menu management > Accounting groups.
3. Click Add an accounting group.
4. Enter the required accounting group information, such as the name and tax profile. To learn more about each field, see the detailed list of Accounting group settings.
5. Click Save to save changes.
6. Add new items or edit existing items to assign the accounting group to them.

Accounting group settings

• Name: Name of the accounting group as it appears in the Back Office.
• Accounting ID (optional): Reference number used for accounting and property management system (PMS) integrations. When setting up an integration, make sure the accounting ID in the Back Office matches the same ID used in the integration.
• Tax profile: Determines the tax profile that will be applied to items in the accounting group.
• Statistic categories (optional): Statistic groups allow you to sort items into more specific categories for reports like the Product mix report. Statistic groups are more flexible than accounting groups because they’re not tied to taxes or production centers.
• Items in this group require users to enter the number of covers (optional): With this setting enabled, the POS will prompt staff to enter the number of covers, or guests, when sending an item in this accounting group to the kitchen. This allows you to collect data on the number of meals served. To require a cover count for all table orders, enable Prompt cover count on a floor plan instead.

  For the covers prompt to appear when using this setting, you must disable Allow accounts with zero covers and set the Default number of covers for new accounts to 0 in the device configuration. The covers prompt will then appear when naming an order using the Tab name button.

• Production center (optional): A production center determines which printer(s) will print order tickets for items in this accounting group. Production centers also control certain print settings for order tickets, such as the font size.
• Secondary production center (optional): With a secondary production center, items ordered from this accounting group will appear in a small font as a notification to the secondary production center. This improves communication between different back-of-house areas where items are prepared.

  Example: Consider the following accounting groups:

  • Pizza - Has a production center called Pizza oven and a secondary production center called Kitchen.
  • Entrées - Has a production center called Kitchen but no secondary production center. 

  When a pizza and entrée are sent to the kitchen at the same time for an order, two order tickets will print:

  • Ticket #1 prints to the Pizza oven production center and contains only the pizza item.
  • Ticket #2 prints to the Kitchen production center and includes both the entrée and pizza. The pizza appears in a small font on the ticket.

Editing accounting groups

Once an accounting group is added to the Back Office, you can always edit or delete it. Edit an accounting group to adapt and respond to changes in your business day-to-day, such as updating its name or tax profile.

1. Log in to the Back Office with your Lightspeed Restaurant credentials.
2. From the navigation menu, select Menu management > Accounting groups.
3. Select Edit next to an accounting group row.
4. Make the desired edits, such as changing the tax profile assigned to the group. See Accounting groups settings for the full list of details.
5. Click Save to save changes.

Deleting accounting groups

Delete accounting groups that you no longer need to remove them from the Back Office. Only empty accounting groups can be deleted, so be sure to unlink all items assigned to the group before deleting it. 

To view the items in an accounting group, go to Menu management > Accounting groups and select Items in a row. See Creating and editing items to learn how to change the accounting group assigned to each item.

1. Log in to the Back Office with your Lightspeed Restaurant credentials.
2. From the navigation menu, select Menu management > Accounting groups.
3. Select Remove on an accounting group row.

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