Lightspeed Restaurant Reviews

Best POS I've used

We wanted a simple to use, reliable and feature rich application and Lightspeed delivered, only wish we could write our own extensions a little easier.

Choose Lightspeed!

Lightspeed was, is, and will continue to be great for us.
Staff loves the ease of use of the front end. I love the simplicity of updating the online site, the data available for export in the office, and the full integration with our other software.

Not for us!

Overall the platform/epos does what it needs to do! We personally had constant connectivity issues between devices which they always try to lay blame elsewhere, which caused issues with kitchen printing and network printing in general. We installed a £5k new internet / network across one of the sites to resolve all and it did nothing to improve with 800mb speeds

We have several pubs / restaurants, and this was really not suited to our operations!

We also were not allowed to add a new site without using light speed payments at the new site with the epos which we didn’t want to do as they couldn’t match our current card machine rates. Therefore this resulted in the new site using a different epos, which we have now moved all the businesses too.

I don’t think it’s your worst option of an epos, but for someone with a small operation such as ours with a couple pub/restaurant sites, this is not the epos for you!

!!SMALL BUSINESS WARNING!! NOT FAIR

!!WARNING!!! THIS COMPANY IS NOT FAIR!
They bundled in the loyalty program in our automatic renewal. We were looking into the addition to see if it fits our business. Another $800 was tacked on to our renewal for the Loyalty program that I did not authorize. They are refusing to refund the Loyalty program fee say that we are in a contract and they have a phone recording committing to the contract (they won't actual share the recording though). We have no need for this extra program at the moment, have not used it and do not plan to use it at this time as our business volume has a ceiling and the margins do not support it at this time. We understand the value in the loyalty program by cannot presently justify it.

I have not worked for or worked with a company that does not work fairly with their customers.

I do not recommend LightSpeed and am stuck with them for another 11 months and plan to find a better POS partner.

Take the plunge, get Lightspeed

Started with Lightspeed during covid, and it was possibly one of the best decisions we could have made for our restaurant. We are now able to accurately determine quantities of items sold and see what menu items are performing under to be able to advertise and highlight those items. Customer support is always available and I’ve never had to wait long to be connected to someone when I needed help. They will do their absolute best to fix every problem you have. We also recently went through a Hurricane that caused power and internet outrages for extended times in our area. We were still able to use Lightspeed despite not being able to connect with the internet thanks to their software and technology. Once the internet was restored (about a month later), Lightspeed was able to back up all sales and report information from when the internet was out. I highly recommend taking the plunge and starting up with Lightspeed. We are very satisfied.

Lightspeed at the speed of light!

Fantastic POS

Makes Perfect Sense!

We have been using Lightspeed for 2+ years now and absolutely love it! We are able to utilize many of their components to assist us not only in the basics (inventory, sales) but analytics and E-Comm. LS staff are very knowledgeable, friendly and quick to respond to our needs.

Indifferent Support

Although I had used Lightspeed pre pandemic it became a nightmare to re-set up post pandemic. First, they didn't even have available the App for the new version in my country's App Store. Then it took days (via email) to figure things out and get it up and running. They have the absolute WORST support when it comes to billing. One time my CC was declined and it took me a WEEK to get the card re-charged with a lot of run-around between chats and unfilled promises by Lightspeed. The link to pay your bill that they eventually send you DOES NOT WORK (nor have they done anything about it after I notified them many months ago. At chat support they send you another link to another system that declines the charge saying "not supporting the currency in your country" Whaat? The U.S. dollar, probably the most used currency in the world! Off chat support again with no promise of how long I'll take to re-try charging my card. There's an indifference there to the customers. I sense that they have become too big for their britches? Oh, and they just turned off my Backoffice access without any warning! oh wait, I've only been a customer for 8 years... hm

Good POS option

Go with something else!

If it was up to me, I would cancel our contract.

Not The Same Company They Used To Be

The first two years we used Lightspeed was awesome. Year three the software was failing weekly.
We went two weeks without the inventory purchase order system, because Lightspeed told us it was a probelm on our end. The deny they had problems. We went a long time without being able to process payments because a clitch in their system. I personally beleive they were growing too fast. It was clear that they accepted that they would loose customers through out the process.

Disgracefull

Overall experience is disgracefully! There call center is in a third world country with poor phone lines and roosters crowing in the background! They only answer during the day, not when needed after hours.

Not for a bar and terrible customer service

Basically I’ve spent 3 months begging someone to help me figure out how I can best tailor the system to my needs. No one cares. Their system limps along at Best and they just don’t care. They also can no longer take tap or touch less payment.

Back end down for Two days - First line support ultra weak - Advance Reporting is basic

For basic questions they are great. When something goes into chaos you will be down and will just have to deal with it as they are slowwwwwww at resolving issues (could be a full days or a week) that have major affects on your business.
Be ready to manually have to do a lot of Reconciliation. And be ready to have High Blood pressure..

Best decision to go with LS

LS has contributed to the growth of our business. With their various integrations, they have made taking online and in-room orders very easy for our staff! LS has definitely helped us go through the pandemic!

Kounta review from a "cloud integrator" perspective

I am a cloud integrator and have implemented a number of Xero + POS add-ons. I select Kounta for my customers purely on its hospitality focus and it's table management add-on. I have been really impressed with how it handles the concept of modifiers and how smooth the integration is with Tyro electronic payments.

However, I feel that there is a lot of navigating around the 'back office' to get what you need to get done. The CSV data importers are good, but I still found I had to do many repetitive updates manually via the user interface that the importer didn't support. The user interface is a bit big and boxy for my liking but understandably some see this as a benefit if working off a tablet in a cafe most of the time.

The client registration process was a bit tedious (maybe at least for us implementers/advisers) but when up and running my customers love the product. The POS register is really powerful and soon after becoming power users the only niggling complaint I get are small enhancements to customisations which are unfortunately locked down in the product anyway. e.g. layouts on receipts, dockets, shortcuts panel, etc.

I have also been really impressed with Kounta's email support and communication on release notes. You can really tell they are working hard in making this product better and better. Personally, I would like to see more flexible pricing plans for store owners that have multiple (small-sized) cafes, which will hopefully encourage the greater use of bump screens for the Kitchen/Brewster and mobile registers where waiting staff can take orders + electronic payments at the table. Maybe I am just over the little pad and pencil.

In short, I am a big fan of Kounta POS in food & beverage. Totally recommend.

It is the only cloud based pos for hospitality I think we could use and run our business

It allows us to easily manage customer transaction and to report on total sales and products in a really efficient way. We've grown in our understanding of our business enormously just reusing kounta

Best on the market

Anytime an issue or a question rise up, the team is super helpful and quick to solve it !

Best POS we had in 17 years of operation!

Easy to make change on our menu, easy to change the price, a really helpfull tool in our daily operations.

Buggy and lack of support

Worst POS system ever. I would give zero stars if I could.

Service was dismal and a lot of bugs with the program. It seems like the program was half completed when it was released.

While it might perform at a satisfactory level when the business is relatively small and not as busy, this software clearly cannot handle when we have over 100 covers per service as there was no bugs during our quieter service period.

Absolute waste of money and time. Only consolation I have is that I can use the reuse the hardware with other POS system as it was just iPads and cash register.

Little follow up with the problems we had and when they did contact us, 90% of the time they were unable to resolve the issue. We had double prints of orders resulting in wasting and also missing prints of kitchen orders resulting in angry customers and damage to our reputation.

If you are looking to get Kounta because it is cheaper, don't bother. We were happy to get rid of it.

Lightspeed Review

Works well and very simple to use.

Ease of use. Good reporting.

Great product

The best customer service and support I have experienced!

I am new to the hospitality industry and there is so much to learn and I need to learn fast. Kounta's excellent customer service and support has helped me tremendously to streamline my sales and to look professional. With so much to learn in the beginning, it was comforting to have a friendly voice always on the other side of the phone to assist me , and all the staff at Kounta have always been very patient with me (when I don't understand). Service like this is rare, and I absolutely appreciate it. I will always be loyal to this Company and will recommend it to everyone. Kounta has a fantastic product and they have the support to match it in order for you to utilize your products to the fullest and get value for your money. Thank you for a great product but even greater customer service and support!