Understanding how to set up and use printers in Lightspeed Restaurant (K-Series) is essential for managing orders and providing receipts to customers.
This article explains how printing works, how receipts and order tickets print at the POS, how to adjust and customize printouts, and how to get troubleshooting help.
Overview of printing
The key elements of printing in Lightspeed Restaurant are your printer hardware and how you configure printers, printing profiles, and production centers in the Back Office.
Printer hardware
Many different supported printers work with Lightspeed Restaurant. A printer's type (thermal or impact) and its connection method determine what it can do and how it connects to your POS system.
To install your printer hardware, follow along with the guide for your model of printer or our general printer setup article.
Example
The Star TSP100/TSP143 is a popular type of thermal receipt printer hardware that connects via LAN.
Back Office printers
After installation, add your printers to the Back Office to integrate them with the POS system. To add a printer: give it a name, select the relevant driver, and enter its IP or hardware address (LAN and Wi-Fi models only).
Example
If you have three receipt printers and three ticket printers, you would add six printers to the Back Office. You might name them after their location and function, such as Counter Receipt Printer or Grill Ticket Printer.
Printing profiles
Printing profiles are what route receipts and order tickets to the correct printers. You link each printer to a printing profile, either as the main printer or a fallback, and then assign the profiles to different parts of Lightspeed Restaurant based on how you want printing to work.
- For receipt printing: Assign printing profiles to floor plans, POS devices, and/or POS configurations to control which printer is used for receipts based on where an order is handled.
- For order ticket printing: Assign printing profiles to production centers to manage ticket printing for kitchen or bar orders.
Example - Receipt profiles
- Receipt printers: Three (one is used only as a fallback).
- Printing profiles needed: Two (one for each main printer).
- Profile names: Counter POS - Left and Counter POS - Right.
- Assignment: Assign each profile to the corresponding POS device it will be used with.
Example - Order ticket profiles
- Ticket printers: Three, each at a different station.
- Printing profiles needed: Three.
- Profile names: Grill tickets, Bar tickets, and Cold prep.
- Assignment: Assign each profile to its corresponding production center, or ticket printing location.
Production centers
Production centers are printing locations for order tickets. They enable ticket printing and contain settings for how your tickets will look.
Create a production center for each ticket printer, making sure to select the printing profile for that printer. Assign each production center to an accounting group to print order tickets for menu items in that group.
Example
- Ticket printing profiles: Three (Grill, Bar, and Cold prep).
- Production centers needed: Three (one per printing profile).
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Assignment: Assign each production center to accounting groups that you want to print order tickets for.
For example, you'd assign the Bar production center to accounting groups called Beer and Mixed Drinks to send tickets for items in those groups to the bar.
Printing at the POS
This section describes how the system handles printing at the point of sale. Learn how receipts and order tickets are routed to specific printers and the methods for triggering printing.
Printing receipts
Receipts are printed differently at each stage of a customer's order and are routed to specific printers based on how you set up printing.
How to print receipts
You can print an order receipt while processing a customer's payment or afterward. If a copy is needed before the customer is ready to pay, print a draft receipt instead.
- Receipts can be manually printed from the Payments screen while accepting payment or from the Receipts screen after an order has been paid.
- Draft receipts can be manually printed by editing an order, going to the Actions menu, and tapping Print receipt.
To enable automatic receipt printing, edit your printing settings.
Receipt printing locations
To determine where a receipt will print to, your printing profiles are evaluated in the following order at the POS:
- Floor plan: Orders started at a table are sent to the printing profile assigned to that floor plan.
- POS Device: If the floor plan does not have a printing profile, the order goes to the profile assigned to the POS device where it is being handled. This also applies if the order is not started at a table.
- POS Configuration: If the POS device does not have a printing profile, the order goes to the profile of the POS configuration assigned to that device.
Printing order tickets
Order tickets print automatically when sending order items or processing payment for an order. Only items that are in an accounting group with a production center will print order tickets.
Settings and customization
There are a variety of settings for modifying the details that print on receipts and order tickets. You can also customize certain behavior about how printouts are generated.
- Receipt and ticket details: Adjust what information is shown on receipts and order tickets in your POS configurations. For example, you can hide the pre-tax total on receipts or add dividers between items on tickets.
- Printing behavior: Control settings for automatic receipt printing, item sorting on tickets, and other features that control how printing happens.
- Receipt templates: Customizable receipt templates allow you to edit more receipt details like the header, footer, and logo.
- Business name and address: To update the business name and address on receipts (and your account), visit your business settings.
Troubleshooting
Printer not printing the way you need it to? Visit our printing troubleshooting guide for detailed steps on solving common printer issues.