Lightspeed POS Reviews

Being a Hospitality professional for 20 years I have dealt with numerous POS systems. Kounta is relatively straight forward and has the functionality and flexibility to run your business with ease.

The support offered by Kounta day and night has been at an exceptional standard. The understanding and support during setup, implementation and to now has been a suprise in this all to modern world. This holistic approach will keep Kounta ahead of the pack for quite some time.

Some of the language with respect to Hospitality is not not necessarily how we refer to how things are done in my experience however it is only a minor issue.

Lightspeed is very reliable, easy to program good functionality. In 3 years our POS has not crashed or stalled. Customer support is remarkable. The team is knowledgeable and professional. My questions are answered the same day.

Most of the reporting is very good. I would like more one page style reports, for example all servers that worked yesterday lists total sales, category sales, average check. I can get this information but each server is listed separately so analysis is time consuming.

Nothing to say here. There is nothing good about this system except for the promptness of my customer service, who usually has bad news. But as I now understand my customer service rep doesn't ACTUALLY work for Kounta, she works for the company that sold it to me. I wish they would have sold me one of their other POS options.

Server level order control is an upgrade, they don't tell you that when purchasing, even though that is one of the most basic things. Check splitting is the most laborious I have ever experienced, if you have a table that needs multiple splits get them a refill of their coffee because it will take a while. No over all system close out, no way to re-open a check. In lieu of that simple option they have a refund button, but, guess what if you had multiple pay types IE Cash and CC that doesn't work, can only refund whole amount to one pay type, which then screws up the server report(one of the biggest reasons to have a POS system) Integrated credit card system has worst customer service ever. If you need to get someone after 9 good luck. Randomly loses checks! Have no idea how that happens but if you are on a check and the system reloads(which it does a lot) bye bye order!

The ux is absolutely straightforward and intuitive, you hardly even need the manual from set up to production

API behind a pay wall. As a software developer who casually wrenches and has set up lightspeed in multiple businesses, I'd have liked to get in deeper on the nerdy side. From a regular user perspective that's not an issue though.

We are able to customize according to our needs. We utilize many of the components and are constantly learning.

Sometimes we have recommendations and submit them.

Lightspeed is sleek, very professional look and feel. Although it does take a number of buttons to run through a transaction, it's definitely an upgrade to what he had prior. The loyalty program integration is amazing, as customers earn points on the spot without any manual entry.

Although not directly related to POS, their payment processing dose not allow partial refunds which causes us headaches at times.

Display of the pos is look modern and kounta can create recipen and inventory and back office. Pso system complet with back office.

Actually they have good features in back office for reporting. But not as good as inventory system by itself. First, POS system not completly all transaction is automaticly show in the report when want to do closing cashier (shift), like we need to do manual calculated some other transaction except cash like card and gofood payment as i used to. Because you have to submit all your type of payment on closing time then you will get report that will show your manual calculted are balance or not, split bill need to do by amount not by item, mostly apps that i was using were by item. Second, we need to buy with additional charge to get more features that we can see more details report (like insight and purchase) and that is expensive. If you dont buy, you will not get clear report as you need for analyzing restaurant performance. Third, menu item that you sell and item only you use for recipe are the same product list. Fourth, service charge and tax calculations are confusing to get the right amount. Every report that you want to dowbload as csv as not that correct way as csv.

Cloud based with handheld hardware options

NOt able to expand out into any CRM functions

When I was tasked with setting up a Point of Sale system in 48 hours I thought it was impossible but when I found Kounta it was easy to set up and integrate into our credit card machine in a matter of hours.

The most challenging thing that I found was I could not email the monthly receipts to my accounting team and would need to give them the main control to the platform if I wanted them to be able to access that directly.

This is a very easy POS to use, all cloud based so access at any time is a cinch! for a newby in hospitality without any experience setting up a point of sale its been a relatively simple task. The access to support staff is very good however expended communication hours would be a benefit for the busy people who work on this stuff at night time.

Haven't come across any yet! if there is one thing so for it's integrating add on's, seems to be a little confusing! but i'm sure that is largely due to my inexperience.

Ease of alteration and basic use for staff

The back end of product input is a little cumbersome - a simply category/sub-category/sub-sub category system works best. Sometimes this is represented by Department/category/sub-category either way, it is far more flexible for product input, button organisation and more granular for reporting.

Lightspeed is so easy to use. The simplicity of the program makes it so efficient for even my newest team members to use. We would be lost without it. The service team is outstanding to work with. The reliability is outstanding.

Actually we are very satisfied with the services that we are receiving from Lightspeed.

This software is the industry standard in the bike industry. Most common item are in their database and it does everything that it needs to do. There is a learning curve and it is not clear, to me, if cloud backup is available for records. I have read about integration with quick books but have yet to explore this feature.

Searchable help, including FAQ, while using would be helpful. Item names appear partially when searching until you click on them. This makes it hard to differentiate between 2 similar items.

Easy to use backed up by professional support. Conversion and training was excellent.

Consignment reporting requires a couple extra steps from my previous product.

Back-end setup is pretty simple and user interface for point of sale is easy and forgiving. Our '72 year old non-computer literate' retail associate was able to master it in no time. Customer support is also top notch.

There are a few small issues - refunds are a multi-step process, and setting up the ecom website didn't feel as intuitive as it could be. (I did talk with customer service about this. They agree the process could be streamlined and are in the process of rolling out a new setup process shortly.)

Great easy system to use. Easy to change payment methods and products and downloading and updating on excel also possible. Just starting to sync with Xero so that’s good too. Customer support really has improved massively since we started using it 2 years ago. I would recommend as a good all rounder.

Reporting in close detail has been a tricky one but with Kounta insights it seems to be improving although I think it’s still work in progress.

The ease of use, and the simplicity of the screens.

Nothing.

Overcomes the issue of staff not being able to read or do any math.
Provides multiple copies of invoices so that service can easily be tracked.
Allows lots of options to modify products which gives each client an individual experience.

Takes ages to set up if you have hundreds of products and options......but it is worth doing.

The sales transaction from start to checkout is great. The printing of customer orders in multiple locations plus the kitchen. Modifier are also the best in the market.

Scales and scanner integration for use with a retail store. Scales can't be and scanner with Windows is clunky

Can manage from anywhere. Easy to update products on prices on the spot. Great reporting and crm. Love that you only have to use functions that you require.

I would like to be able to view only POS from device which is not assigned as register. Also, not sure if already available, but we would like to be able to process gift certificates through the till easily.

Ideal for hospitality..providing hospitality POS solutions that were once considerably more expensive. Understands the Australian market. Great customer support. Was having a problem at 7:30 am on a Saturday morning and got an immediate response from a real human. Big ticks for that!
Easy to update and maintain.

a little bit steep for a new business. But overall a great piece of software..the retail capacity is limited but works well for a cafe with a few retail items.

Production printing and cloud operation

Needs a cash-out facility

It's ease of use is the most compelling feature. The reports are reasonably comprehensive too. Great for a hospitality start-up.

There are occassional troubles with printing, where the software somehow loses the fixed IP address of a printer. This is usually temporary, however. It's need to be connected to the Internet is also a con. Whilst it works a little offline, it does become unusable quickly.

Kounta system is very smart and easy to follow.

* It seems a little pricy, we are in NZ and it's in AUS dollars excl GST.
* it needs wifi connections to run all the time. (perhaps it's the trend of our world now :)

One questions in the meanwhile: is there a function to retrieve how many dishes of an item we have sold in a period of time? many thanks!