Lightspeed Subscriptions works with Lightspeed Payments and Lightspeed Retail to give you the tools you need to setup and manage recurring monthly billing. Whether you're shipping monthly packages or collecting membership fees, Subscriptions will handle payment collection for you. 

Contact your account manager to inquire about adding Lightspeed Subscriptions to your account.

Lightspeed Subscriptions requires that you use Lightspeed Payments. Once Subscriptions has been added to your account it will appear in Lightspeed Retail's main menu and you can begin creating plans.

Creating a plan

Before you can sign up customers for subscriptions, you'll need to create a plan to subscribe them to. 

1. Navigate to Subscriptions > Plans.
2. Click Create.
3. Enter a name for this plan.
4. Use the drop-down menu to select the Interval between billings for this plan.
   
5. Click Add product to add items to your plan:
   1. Use the search bar to find items to add to the plan.
   2. Select the item from the search results to add it to the plan.
   3. Optionally, modify the recurring price the item will be sold at as part of the plan.
   4. Optionally, adjust the quantity of the item to be included in the plan.
6. Toggle shipping on if the plan includes items that will be shipped to the customer.
   Note: This will automatically create a shipment order in Lightspeed Retail each time the recurring sale is completed. You will be able to access the shipment order under Inventory > Shipping.
7. Optionally, associate a customer type with the plan:
   1. Activate the customer type toggle.
   2. Enter the name of the customer type to associate with this plan.
      Note: Customers subscribing to this plan will automatically be assigned to that customer type, allowing you to identify them for the purposes of reporting or assigning price rules or discounts. 
8. Define the duration of the plan:
   • Rolling: The subscription will continue indefinitely until it is cancelled.
   • Fixed: A subscription will end automatically after the number of intervals you define. 
9. Click Create.

If you are using a plan to collect recurring membership fees, create a non-inventory item in your inventory and add that item to the plan. 

Selling subscriptions

Selling subscriptions online is no longer supported. All subscriptions must be sold using the following workflow.

Once you have created a plan, you can begin selling subscriptions to that plan.

1. Navigate to Subscriptions > Subscribe.
2. Click Add customer, enter the name of the customer and click Search.
3. Select the customer from the list.
4. Under Plan, begin entering the name of the existing plan you wish to sell to the customer, then select the plan from the list of suggestions.
5. Indicate whether to start the subscription immediately or on a future date.
6. Under payment method, select the credit card on file to be used to pay for this subscription, or click Add credit card to add and select a new card.
7. Click Subscribe.

A confirmation email will be sent to your customer once their subscription has been created.

As you fill out information, Lightspeed Retail will notify you if any required information in the customer's profile is missing.

Click View to access the customer's profile and fill in any missing information. Lightspeed Retail will similarly ensure that the credit card information being entered is valid, and will securely store that information for future billing.

Once a subscription to a plan exists, it will automatically generate a completed sale, and if applicable, a shipping order, for the items included in the plan at the specified intervals for the customer attached. The shop location and register that were used to create the subscription are used for these sales. The sale is not created if the last payment failed.

Adding a credit card

You can add a customer's credit card to their subscription by either asking for the card's information and entering it manually, or by inviting them to add the card information themselves. Having the customer enter their own card information is more secure as they do not have to share their card information with the employee who is entering the data.

To manually enter the card information:

1. Click Add credit card.
2. Enter the card number, expiration date, and CVC.
3. Click Confirm.

To invite the customer to enter their own card information:

1. Click Add credit card.
2. Under invite customer to add their own card, click Invite. 
3. A QR code will appear on your screen. Have the customer scan this code with their phone.
4. The QR code will open a web browser on the customer's phone bringing them to their profile. Have the customer tap + Add payment method.
5. Have the customer enter their card number, expiration date, CVC, and zip code. 
6. Have the customer tap Add.
7. The QR code will be replaced with a confirmation that the credit card has been added. Click Continue.

Managing existing subscriptions

You can review and make changes to any existing subscriptions at any time. To do so, navigate to Subscriptions > Subscriptions.

Subscriptions can be filtered by their status or by customer, and Lightspeed Retail will call attention to any subscriptions that are past due on their payments.

For each subscription, you will see:

• The name of the customer.
• The status of the subscription.
  • Scheduled: a subscription that is set to begin on a future date.
  • Active: a subscription that is currently ongoing.
  • Expired: a subscription that has reached the end of its duration.
  • Canceled: a subscription that has been manually canceled before running its course.
  • Past due: a subscription with one or more failed payments.
• The name of the plan being subscribed to.
• When the subscription was created.

To manually pause an active subscription:

1. Click on the icon.
2. Click Pause subscription.
   
3. Click Pause.

While a subscription is paused, scheduled payments will not be processed and scheduled shipments will not be created.

To manually cancel an active subscription:

1. Click on the icon.
2. Click Cancel subscription.
   
3. Select when you want the subscription to end:
   1. Immediately: the subscription is ended, there will be no future recurring charges, and if a customer type was associated with the subscription, it will be removed from the customer's profile.
   2. At the end of the period: the subscription will remain active for the remainder of the billing period, there will be no future recurring charges, and if a customer type was associated with the subscription, it will be removed from the customer's profile after the current billing period has elapsed.
4. Click Confirm.

Viewing subscription details

You can click on any subscription to view the details.

The details shown on this page are:

• The payment history for this subscription.
• When the next payment is scheduled to take place.
• The amount that will be due when the next payment is scheduled to take place.
• The customer associated with the subscription.
• The plan they are subscribed to.
• The brand, last 4-digits, and expiry date of the credit card on file.
• The amount billed per interval.
• When the subscription was created.
• When the subscription started.
• The billing interval for the subscription.
• When the subscription is scheduled to end.
• Any customer type associated with the subscription.

From this page, you can pause or cancel the subscription using the buttons at the top of the page.

You can also add any private notes on the customer. These notes are for internal purposes and are not visible to the customer.

You can click on any payment to see the transaction details for that payment.

On this page, you can retry a failed payment or refund a successful one.

Refunding a payment

1. Navigate to Subscriptions > Subscriptions.
2. Open the details page for the subscription you'd like to refund a payment for.
3. Click Filters.
4. Click Search.
5. Enter the name of the customer and click Search.
6. Click on the customer name from the list of results.
7. Click on the subscription associated with the payment to refund.
8. Click the payment to refund.
9. Click Refund.
   
10. Enter the reason the payment is being refunded.
11. Click Refund.

The payment will be refunded to the card used to make the payment over the next 3 business days.

Failed payments

If a payment fails, Lightspeed Retail will reattempt to charge the credit card on file after three days, after five days and after seven days.

To manually retry a failed payment:

1. Navigate to Subscriptions > Subscriptions.
2. Open the details page for the subscription you'd like to retry a payment for.
3. Click Filters.
4. Click Search.
5. Enter the name of the customer and click Search.
6. Click on the customer name from the list of results.
7. Click on the subscription associated with the payment to retry.
8. Click on the payment you'd like to retry.
9. Click Try again.
   

Lightspeed Retail will immediately attempt to charge the credit card on file. If the payment is successful, the subscription's status is automatically adjusted and the corresponding sale, and if applicable, shipping order, will be generated.

Managing subscription settings

You can adjust your configuration for Subscriptions by navigating to Subscriptions > Settings.

Notifications

The notifications setting will allow you to configure whether or not confirmation emails are sent to new subscribers.

When activated, an email will be automatically sent to a customer when they sign up for a new subscription informing them:

• That a subscription has been made in their name.
• The name of the plan they've been subscribed to.
• The interval of the plan's billing.
• How long they've been subscribed for.

To adjust this setting:

1. Navigate to Subscriptions > Settings.
2. Toggle the Subscription confirmation on or off.
3. Click Save.

When toggled off, new subscriptions will not result in confirmation emails being sent out. This can be useful when migrating customers over from another software, for example.