Visit the Items page to see an overview of all inventory items in the Inventory module for Lightspeed Restaurant. Products and ingredients here are automatically imported from Back Office. We suggest importing your stocked items into Back Office before making any changes to your recipes or item details. From the Items page, you can manually link items to a preferred supplier or change an item’s measurement type (e.g., set whether an item should be measured by volume, weight, or individual units). 

Adding items to Inventory

For items to appear in the Inventory add-on, they must exist in the Back Office. The quickest way to add multiple items to your Back Office is through the Manual import option, where you'll enter basic information related to your items.

If you prefer to use CSV spreadsheets to conduct your import, there are different import instructions you should follow. Or, if you prefer, you can also add items one at a time while filling it out with more detail.

If you intend to create recipes through Inventory, it's important to add all ingredients to your import, even if they're not available for purchase on your POS. These ingredients could include things like eggs, milk, flour, or any other items necessary for building your recipes.

Manually importing your items

1. Log in to the Back Office with your Lightspeed credentials.
2. From the navigation menu, select Menu management > Items.
3. Click Create > Multiple items.
4. Enter the item information such as Name, Price, Accounting group, Statistics group, and Screen. See the Item details section for descriptions of what these fields represent.
5. Click +Add to create new fields and add more items.
6. (Optional) Toggle Create new accounting groups if you're assigning items to accounting groups that don't already exist.
7. Click Import to finish.

Accessing and editing items

Once your items have been added to Back Office and they'll appear in the Inventory add-on. Follow the steps below to learn how to both access and edit items.

1. Log in to the Inventory module with your Lightspeed credentials.
2. From the navigation menu, select Stock management > Items.
3. Click an item to edit its settings.
   
4. To adjust the Dimensions, follow steps 4a-4d.
   
   1. Click Unit, Volume, or Weight to set the preferred measurement type for the item.
   2. Use the drop-down menu to select the measurement type.
   3. Adjust the size as needed (e.g., 1 milk carton = 2L)
   4. Set the Unit type (e.g., Bottle, Can, Box, Sleeve, etc.).
5. To set the Packaging format, follow steps 5a-5d. For a detailed explanation of how Packaging formats work, see Understanding packaging.
   1. Click Add a format.
   2. Fill in the Format name field by typing in a new packaging type (e.g., box, container, etc.) or selecting from existing ones in the drop-down menu.
   3. In the Amount field, enter the number of units contained within this packaging type.
   4. Click Add format to finish, and repeat steps 5a-5d as needed for additional Packaging formats. Note: Packaging can be updated by clicking Edit or removed by clicking the Trash icon. 
6. To link suppliers to an item, follow steps 6a-6c.
   1. Click Link suppliers to this item.
   2. Check the boxes beside the vendors’ names in the pop-up window.
   3. Click Save suppliers to finish.
7. (Optional) If suppliers are already attached, click Unlink to remove any unwanted suppliers from an item.
8. Click Save item settings to save any updates or changes to an item.

Understanding packaging

Packaging formats in Lightspeed Inventory are designed to help manage how your products are packaged. They rely on the Unit type, which is the smallest quantity of the product. For instance, if you sell ginger beer, the unit type might be a single bottle. However, when ordering ginger beer from your suppliers, you may order it in larger quantities, like six-packs or cases. To help you manage your inventory for purchase orders, you can define the packaging formats. For example, you can specify that a six-pack contains 6 bottles while a case contains 4 six-packs.

When a purchase order is placed, the total quantity of items is automatically calculated in terms of the base units. For example, if you order a case, 24 bottles will be added to your inventory.

This efficient approach simplifies inventory management, making it easier to order and store your products in different quantities.

What's next?