Production centers, device settings, and printing profiles are the three pillars that enable POS printing. Essentially, production centers are the destinations for printing jobs. They can be configured from the Back Office, including settings like printing destination, templates, and IP address. This article will guide you on adding production centers from the Back Office.

Adding production centers 

1. Login to Back Office with your Lightspeed credentials.
2. From the main navigation, go to Configuration > Printing > Production centers.
3. Click + Add production center.
   
4. Fill in the form to customize the production center. For a list of settings and descriptions of what they do, see Production center settings.
5. Select Save to add the production center to the Back Office.

Production center settings

Setting	Description
Name	Enter a proper name for the production centers.
Virtual production center	Enable this setting if you are using a Kitchen Display System (KDS) instead of a printer. To learn more, visit our article About the Lightspeed Kitchen Display System. Note: When this option is enabled, the fields on this page will change and new options appear. You may want to enable Organize the content of the order docket into course before enabling this setting. See Virtual production center settings for more information on these settings.
Printer profile	Select the printer profile that this production center will use. If you do not choose a printing profile, the production center will remain disabled. Note: Shows all printer profiles that you've created in Configuration > Printing > Printing profiles. See Manging printing profiles to learn more.
Supported order types	If you want to restrict this production center to printing only certain order types, select type here from the available drop-down menu. For instance, part your kitchen may only need to print dine-in orders, while a packing area printer might focus on takeaway or online orders. Order types include: Direct orders, Table-side orders, Takeaway orders, and Online orders.
Number of empty lines at the top of docket	Use the available slider to add blank lines at top of each production ticket. Adding empty lines to dockets can be useful if you hang them on a ticket rail/holder and want to ensure no information gets covered.
Organize the content of the order docket into courses	When enabled, this option organizes the ticket into sections based on the type of dishes ordered. For example, all starters will be grouped together, followed by all main dishes, and so on. Note: This option should be disabled if this production center is used for drinks.
Prefix names with the corresponding object identifiers	This can be used with integrations such as Drink Flow Management systems.
Print a single item per docket	Enabling this option makes it so that each ticket contains only one item. This is useful if your workflow involves giving the customer their docket and the customer later presents it to retrieve their order, item by item.
Print wider lines	Makes the lines on printed tickets wider for legibility.
Trigger the drawer connector when printing a docket	When this option is enabled, the printer will send a signal to open the cash drawer each time a ticket is printed. By connecting a buzzer to the printer's drawer output, the buzzer will produce a sound indicating the completion of a print job, thereby alerting your staff to a new order that has been placed.
Print delivery information	When enabled, this setting will print the delivery information on takeaway orders.
Font Size	Controls the size of the printed text on production tickets, which can be set to small, medium, or large.

Virtual production center settings

Editing production centers

If you need to change the settings on a production center after you've created it, you can access the production center's page and edit it as needed.

1. Login to Back Office with your Lightspeed credentials.
2. From the navigation bar, go to Configuration > Printing > Production centers.
3. Select Edit next to the production center to be adjusted.
4. Make the desired changes to the settings. For a list of settings and descriptions of what they do, see Production center settings.
5. Click Save to apply your changes to the desired production center.

Deleting production centers

If you ever need to remove a production center, you can do so from the Back Office.

1. Login to Back Office with your Lightspeed credentials.
2. From the navigation menu, go to Configuration > Printing > Printing profiles.
3. Click Remove next to the printing profile to be deleted.

What's next?