For costing, ordering, inventory, and purchasing functions, it's necessary to set up product vendors. If you added product industries when you were configuring your account, the associated vendors were automatically added to your vendor list, but you will still need to add the vendor settings.
You can add vendors when adding products manually. If you import products into Retail POS from a pre-existing database that includes vendor information, the vendors are automatically added to your Retail POS system.
Manually editing and adding vendors
You can add vendors individually or edit existing vendors from the main menu:
- Click Inventory > Vendors.
- To edit an existing vendor, select them from the list, or click + New Vendor to add a new vendor.
- Enter the vendor options and contact information. If you select any of the Update From Catalog options, the information is updated automatically when adding items to a purchase order to reflect the updated vendor catalog. This is especially useful for using integrated vendors.
- Click Save Changes.
Importing vendor data
If you need to add a large number of vendors, an import can save time versus adding each individually. You’ll need to prepare a spreadsheet for your inventory data formatted for Retail POS. If it isn’t properly formatted, it will be returned to you to update and your import will be delayed. Once the data is verified, you can submit your spreadsheet to the Retail Imports team.
The data import can take 3 to 5 business days to complete. If the Retail Imports team makes any changes to your data, the file will be sent back to you for your approval.
Preparing your spreadsheet
Retail POS imports are compatible with XLSX and CSV file types.
- If you are transitioning from a POS software to Lightspeed, export your current inventory data from your previous POS software to a CSV or XLSX spreadsheet file.
- Create a backup copy of your original export file. The backup file is a precaution against any errors, and can also be used to verify your data.
- In your spreadsheet file, rename the column headings so that they match the Retail POS system headings.
- Review your spreadsheet data and fix any formatting or data errors.
To avoid having to manually correct the data in your system, format your spreadsheet so that the Retail Imports team can easily import it.
All city, state, and zip codes must be in their own columns, and not merged into one cell. You can re-order columns as you wish. If a column contains no data other than the heading, delete the entire column.
Retail POS imports are compatible with standard US keyboard characters and accents. Other alphabets are not supported.
Vendor name
Vendor's name.
- Text up to 255 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Account number
Your account number with the vendor.
- Text up to 25 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Vendor Currency
- A purchasing currency that has already been created under Settings > General Options > Currencies.
- If you have multicurrency enabled in your account, you can assign one of your purchasing currencies to the imported vendor. You cannot create new purchasing currencies via import, however, so it will need to be created before importing.
- If you import a vendor currency that has not already been created in your account, the currency will default to your store currency with an exchange rate of 1.0.
Contact first name
Contact's first name.
- Text up to 255 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Contact last name
Contact's last name.
- Text up to 255 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Address 1
Vendor's address line 1.
- Text up to 25 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Address 2
Vendor's address line 2.
- Text up to 25 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
City
City the vendor lives in.
- Text up to 25 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
State
State the vendor lives in.
- Text up to 25 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Zip
Zip Code the vendor lives in. Zip+4 format is acceptable for this field ("12345-1234").
- Numeric or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Country
Country the vendor lives in.
- Text up to 255 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Work phone
Work phone number of the vendor. Several formats are acceptable:(123)123-1234 or 123-123-1234.
- Numeric or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Fax
Fax number of the vendor. Several formats are acceptable:(123)123-1234 or 123-123-1234.
- Numeric or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Mobile
Mobile phone number of the vendor. Several formats are acceptable:(123)123-1234 or 123-123-1234.
- Numeric or blank. No returns or line breaks.
E-Mail 1
Vendor's primary email address.
- Text up to 255 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
E-Mail 2
Vendor's secondary email address.
- Text up to 255 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Website
Vendor's website.
- Text up to 255 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Custom
Can be used for a vendor number to quickly add a vendor to a document.
- Text up to 255 characters or blank. No returns or line breaks.
Notes
Vendor-related notes.
- No returns or line breaks.
Verifying data and submitting your spreadsheet
After you create your import spreadsheet, check for any data which can cause the data import to fail. The steps below are based on using Excel to edit your spreadsheet.
- Remove special characters to avoid issues with how data is displayed.
- Correct rows that extend into other columns.
- Erase cells with N/A so that they have a blank field.
- Change cells with scientific numbers, such as 4.001E+11 (usually UPC or EAN values) so that they are regular integers instead, such as 40010000000.
- Remove line breaks from cells or rows.
- Highlight all of the data in the spreadsheet.
- Press Ctrl+F or Find.
- Click the Replace tab.
- In the Find box, while holding Alt, type 0010. You will not see any changes, but a character has been added. Don't type anything in the Replace box.
- Click Replace all.
- Add a missing 0 to UPC numbers. Some spreadsheet software will remove the leading 0 from UPC numbers. To correct this, add "0" (a zero in apostrophes) to the beginning of a UPC number. Typically, UPCs are 12 digits long, so you can sort your spreadsheet by the UPCs and fix any that are 11 digits or fewer. This isn't always the case with UPCs, so check your product's barcode.
After you prepare, format, and verify your import spreadsheet file, create a ticket to submit it to the Retail Imports team.
Merging vendors
If you have duplicate records in your list of vendors, you can merge the details into one record.
Merging cannot be undone. As fields from the primary record overwrite the secondary record, take care to ensure that no data is lost when merging vendors.
When you merge vendor records, you'll be asked to choose one to be a primary record and one to be a secondary record. The following rules are then applied:
- The information in the primary record will be kept, and the secondary record will deleted.
- If the primary record has a field with no information, and information exists in the secondary record, the information will be copied to the primary record.
- If both fields have information, the info in the primary record is kept.
To merge vendor records:
- Navigate to Inventory > Vendors.
- To find a vendor record to edit, enter the vendor's name in the Name search field and click Search.
- To merge two vendors that are the same, open the vendor record you want to keep as the primary record.
- Click Merge.
- Select the check box for the secondary vendor record you want to merge into the primary vendor record.
- Click Merge > OK.
What's next?
Importing items from vendor catalogs
Save time by importing items from pre-built vendor catalogs.