Lightspeed is excited to offer eligible businesses access to quick financing through Lightspeed Capital. If you're looking for a speedy influx of capital to expand or renovate your business, Lightspeed Capital offers you a fast and easy path forward.

Eligible businesses will be contacted with a few different offer amounts, allowing you to choose the amount that works best for your business. The offer will outline how much you are eligible to receive and what the flat fee is for the cash advance. The method of repayment may differ depending on your payment processor, but in any case, you'll pay the advance back gradually as a percentage of your daily transactions. 

There is no deadline to pay and no interest -- just a flat fee that gets paid back at the speed of your business. Once you’ve been approved and accepted an offer, you’ll typically see the funds in your bank account within 1-2 business days.

Applying for Lightspeed Capital

Lightspeed merchants using integrated payments are automatically reviewed for eligibility every month. The criteria for eligibility are based on several factors, including your transaction volume and history. You will be contacted via email if your business qualifies for an offer and offers can be reviewed in the Back Office of Lightspeed Restaurant by navigating to Financial Services > Capital.

• Offers will remain available for up to 30 days, after which the offer will expire and you will be reevaluated for eligibility as before.
• Eligible merchants using Lightspeed Payments will be able to apply directly from the Back Office of Lightspeed Restaurant.

If there are no offers available, your business is not currently eligible for funding. However, our eligibility requirements are frequently updated, so check back regularly if you’re interested in a cash advance for your business.

If you have questions about your eligibility or the amount you are eligible for, please email us at capital.sales@lightspeedhq.com.

Accepting an offer

If your business is eligible for Lightspeed Capital, you will be contacted via email with your personalized offer. Offers can also be reviewed by navigating to Financial Services > Capital.

Your offer will outline:

• the financing amount: the amount that will be deposited into your bank account
• the flat fee: the fee you'll pay over time in exchange for the advance -- there are no other fees and there is no interest
• the total amount owed: the sum of the financing amount and the flat fee
• the repayment rate: the percentage of your daily card transactions that will be debited to pay down your financing.

For example, you may receive an offer that looks something like this:

• Financing amount: $30,000
• Flat fee: $4200
• Total amount owed: $34,200
• Repayment rate: 11%

If you accepted the example offer above, you would receive $30,000. Eleven percent of your daily transaction total would then be debited from your account until you've paid down the total amount owed of $34,200 (the $30,000 advance plus the $4200 flat fee).

Repaying Lightspeed Capital advances

Regardless of how long it takes you to pay down the total amount owed, you will never be charged more than the financing amount and the flat fee. There is no deadline to pay down the advance and there is no accrued interest or late fees. You’ll repay the amount owed automatically over time at the speed of your business.

How repayment works

The total card sales you process in a day will determine how quickly you pay back the advance. You process sales as normal, and after your daily processing batch has settled, Lightspeed will debit your account a percentage of that batch according to your repayment rate. This repayment process will begin automatically 1-2 business days after the funds have been deposited into your account. The more card sales you process, the faster you'll pay down your financing.

If you would prefer to pay down even faster, you can arrange to make manual payments in addition to the withheld amounts. To do so, contact capital@lightspeedhq.com to request a manual payment.

Repaying early does not guarantee subsequent financing offers. Accounts are automatically reviewed for additional offers on a monthly basis and we will reach out to you via email if you qualify for any additional offers.

Keeping your Capital repayment in good standing

In most cases, your automatic repayments process without needing any additional action on your part. If an automatic repayment cannot be deducted from your account for any reason, we will notify you through the Financial Services tab.

It is recommended that you use the same bank account for both Lightspeed Payments and Lightspeed Capital to prevent issues with repayment.

Most commonly, repayments cannot be collected successfully due to an issue with your bank account or insufficient funds. Below is a short list of some of the most common reasons that a repayment cannot be collected:

• Changes to the bank account on file: If you have recently updated your bank account for Lightspeed Payments, ensure it has also been updated for Lightspeed Capital.
• Issues with direct debit: You may have made changes to your bank account preventing us from collecting repayments. Contact your bank to make changes or contact us for more information. 
• Insufficient funds: There may not be enough funds in your account to make your Lightspeed Capital repayment. Add funds to your account to continue repayments.

If you have any questions about your account, please contact us for more information.

Checking your Lightspeed Capital statements

You can view your repayment process on your advances by navigating to Financial Services > Capital within the Lightspeed Restaurant Back Office.

Clicking on a specific advance will pull up a detailed account of payment progress. 

Pending transactions have been initiated by Lightspeed Capital to collect from your bank, but have not yet been processed. These do not count towards your outstanding balance at this time. The balance will be updated once the transaction is processed. Pending transactions may take several days to process, depending on your bank.

Pending transactions are shown when Capital repayments are made using direct debit. If your repayment plan instead deducts your repayment from your payments payout, you will not see a Pending transactions section.

Processed transactions have been processed by your bank and cleared or rejected. These count towards your outstanding balance.

There are several other transaction types. These include:

• Adjustment: An adjustment was made to your balance.
• Automatic repayment: Normal automatic repayment towards your outstanding balance.
• Chargeback: Funds were returned to your account due to a chargeback (you initiated cancellation of a transaction after it was processed by the bank).
• Credit: A discount/credit was offered towards your outstanding balance.
• One-time repayment: You made an unscheduled, one-time payment towards your outstanding balance.
• Repayment refund: A refund was issued to your account by Lightspeed Capital.

Any failed transaction will show the reason for the rejection. These include:

• Bank account issue: There is an issue with your bank account information. Contact Support to correct your information.
• Insufficient funds: There were insufficient funds in your bank account when the transaction attempted to process. Make sure there are sufficient funds in your bank account to cover your scheduled payments.
• Rejected by bank: Your bank has blocked the repayment due to a hold placed on your bank account. Contact your bank to inquire about the blocked transactions.
• Error: An unknown error occurred while collecting your repayment. Contact Support for more information.

You will receive a monthly statement showing your repayment progress, including Pending transactions, a breakdown of Processed transactions, and your remaining balance. Statements are emailed to the email address used on your application.

Exporting your Capital statement

To export your statement, on your statement page, click Export. The statement will automatically download to your computer.

This statement will display your processed transactions and remaining balance.

Lightspeed Capital FAQ

• Capital and the flexibility it provides can be make-or-break for a business, and this service is intended to make accessing that capital easier. Rather than being subject to the fixed monthly payments and interest rates of a loan, Lightspeed Capital offers you a simple, seamless process with repayments at the speed of your business and a single flat fee for each offer.
• Lightspeed will withhold a certain percentage of your daily credit card transactions according to your repayment rate. That means you repay more when business is good, and less when things slow down.
• No. Lightspeed provides a merchant cash advance which is not a loan. At the most technical level: a merchant cash advance is a purchase of future receivables at a price less than the amount expected to receive. A cash advance is remitted as a percentage of income on each future sale. A loan is borrowed money that is paid back according to a set schedule, by a certain deadline. What that means for you, is that you pay back the total amount owed at the rate agreed to in your offer. No deadlines and no interest.
• There is no set payment schedule or contract period as this is a merchant cash advance, not a loan.
• As this isn’t a loan, there is no interest rate. You only repay the financing amount and the flat fee you agree to when you accept an offer.
• Based on the amount of funds requested, there is an associated flat fee. This fee is displayed in the Capital section of Lightspeed Restaurant. The flat fee is paid as part of the daily repayments of the advance balance and is not due upfront.
• A merchant can only have one active advance per location, but some locations may be eligible for renewal once 90% of their total amount owed has been repaid. If you have not received a renewal offer but are interested in additional funding, please contact us at capital@lightspeedhq.com.
• Your payment has been processed, but it may take a few days to update in our system. Please check the status again in a few days.

Additional questions?

If you have any questions or would like to discuss additional options, do not hesitate to contact Lightspeed support or email us.

For merchants currently enrolled in Lightspeed Capital who would like to discuss repayment options or have questions about their account, email capital@lightspeedhq.com.

For merchants who would like to learn more about Lightspeed Capital, reach out to our sales team for more information at capital.sales@lightspeedhq.com.