Selecting a posting method in Lightspeed Accounting

Before you can begin mapping your data in Lightspeed Accounting, you'll need to select a posting method. Your choice of posting method should be based on how you prefer to work with your data. The way your information is mapped changes depending on which posting method you select.

Understanding posting methods

Journal Entry

This posting method summarizes your daily activity into a single journal entry with every sync. Your Retail POS sales are mapped by item category to general ledger accounts and you report on your activity by running the profits and losses report.

This method is focused on deposits made to accounts, rather than sales. If you're accustomed to running sales reports in your accounting software, you may not want to use this method as your accounting software won't show sales. You can still report on your sales history in Retail POS.

Summary Sales Receipt

This posting method summarizes your daily sales activity as a single sales receipt. Your sales by Retail POS item categories are mapped to corresponding items created in your accounting software and you report on your activity by running sales reports.

Because this method creates sales in your accounting software, it adds a new setting in General Settings. You have the option to track sales taxes in your accounting software rather than have that tax information sync over from Retail POS.

If you're using Xero as your accounting software, this posting method generates a summary invoice, rather than a sales receipt. You still map your Retail POS item categories, but you map them to income accounts rather than items.

Itemized Sales Receipt

This posting method is similar to Summary Sales Receipt, but maps individual items in Retail POS to a corresponding item in your accounting software instead of mapping your Retail POS item categories. This allows for more granular reporting on sales in your accounting software but can be difficult to keep on top of if you create new items regularly, as each newly created item needs to be mapped.

Retail POS also offers detailed reporting on which items were sold, regardless of which posting method you select for your bookkeeping. With that in mind, you may want to consider Summary Sales Receipt for your posting method instead, unless you rarely add new items to your inventory or you absolutely require sales-by-item reporting in your accounting software.