In addition to integrations for eCommerce (e.g. Shopify), Marketing (e.g. Infusionsoft) and Marketplace integration (e.g. eBay), Hyperspace also provides Data Import solutions for Lightspeed.
Pricing for our Data Import module is posted at the end of this article. Please note the disclaimer and the important points at the end of this article.
Here is a short 4 minute summary video detailing the import process. This summarizes the import steps for customer and product data imports and reviews the final step for sales order imports.
Historical Data Migration
This article describes how to import older sales transactions into Lightspeed.
A sales transaction consists of customer data, product data and the old sales transactions (sales date, line items, payment). Typically any older Point of Sale system has a method to extract the data. The data can be extracted to a .csv (excel spreadsheet), xml or in extreme cases by mining the database, report exports or using web services via the API.
It is the customer's responsibility to export their data from their old Point of Sale system and format it into the correct .csv (excel spreadsheet) format required for import.
Before you can import your sales orders, you will need to import your customers and products first with the Lightspeed Product Data Import team or by using their data import tool.
Step 1: Importing Customers
The first step when migrating older sales orders into Lightspeed is to extract the data from your existing system of record into a spreadsheet (.csv or .xls). No technical expertise is required other than copying and pasting data into Excel for most migration projects.
The first step to getting started is to extract your customers from your system of record.
Customer Data: This is a spreadsheet that contains all of the customers related to all of the historical sales data. It includes first name, last name, email address and more. The most important part of this data file is to extract the old customer ID and paste it into a field labeled 'Custom' in Lightspeed. You can see a video of where that field exists in Lightspeed below.
You can find this field on the right side of the customer screen in Lightspeed.
Once you have extracted this data file from your old Point of Sale, your team will need to copy and paste the data into the Lightspeed preferred customer file format.
Click here to download a sample or view the entire tutorial here.
Please make sure to place the old Customer ID into the Custom field for this import sheet.
Step 2: Importing Products
The second step is to extract your products from your system of record. You will need to extract all products that exist as line items on all of the sales orders you will import.
Product Data: This is a spreadsheet that contains all of the products related to the historical sales data. It contains a specific product id or SKU. The product id is usually a product code, product id or SKU related to each product. This becomes your Custom SKU in Lightspeed.
Once you have extracted this data file, your team or one of our resources will need to copy and paste the data into the product file format.
Click here to download a sample or view the entire tutorial here.
Once that is complete, submit both the customer and product file to Lightspeed for import. Lightspeed will import all customers and all products into your Lightspeed account.
It is important that Lightspeed’s Data import team is instructed to put the specific customer id in the field labeled ‘Custom’ in the customer profile. It is also important that the old product id is imported to the Custom SKU field in the product profile in Lightspeed.
Before proceeding to the next step, be sure to examine the data import in Lightspeed to ensure that it is correct.
Step 3: Importing Older Sales Transactions
The final step is to prepare your sales sheet. You will need to copy and paste your sales into the correct format. Your team will need to copy and paste the data into the sales file format required by Hyperspace.
Click here to download the sales order file format.
Please note that the ‘Custom’ column is the old Customer ID from Step 1 and the Custom SKU is the old Product ID from Step 2.
Once your sheet is ready, submit it to your Hyperspace Project Manager. Your Hyperspace PM will need your Lightspeed login credentials to being the import process.
Please note the following when creating your files.
1. Create 1 file for each store location. Sales are imported to a specific store location that exists in Lightspeed.
2. Identify the default employee for each file. Sales are imported with a specific employee associated to the sale. Occasionally clients will create an employee in Lightspeed called 'Historical Order'. This makes is easier to identify older orders imported during this process. Be sure to create this employee in Lightspeed before importing data.
3. Identify the default payment method for each file. Sales are imported with a specific payment method associated to the sale. Occasionally clients will create an employee in Lightspeed called 'Historical Order'. This makes is easier to identify older orders imported during this process. Be sure to create this payment method in Lightspeed before importing data.
Important Items to Note
1. Orders can be imported at a rate of 8,000 orders per day. This is not a limitation of Hyperspace. It is the maximum speed for the Lightspeed API to write sales order data.
2. Importing old orders will adjust inventory so it is recommended that you do not go live with your Lightspeed account unless you import all orders into a non-production store location in Lightspeed Retail.
Note 1: Posting payments are required to mark the sale complete in Lightspeed. Hyperspace can import payments with a specific payment method such as 'historical payment' to make reporting easier. The Hyperspace import process will post the current date of import in Lightspeed. This will not affect Lightspeed Analytics or your Sales Transaction report, but it is recommended that you import all historical orders before running Lightspeed in a live production environment. It is recommended that you select a payment method in Lightspeed that you do not typically use (e.g. historical payment). It is also recommended that you select an employee that you do not typically use (e.g. historical import). This will enable you to easily sort the historical orders and current orders in reports and exports.
Note 2: Imported sales WILL adjust inventory for the Store Location you select in your settings. Your inventory will be reduced for all quantities that exist on orders. It is recommended that you import all historical orders before running Lightspeed in a live production environment. You can re-import all current inventory counts after the historical import is finished to fix the inventory count across your entire Lightspeed account.
Note 3: If sales data is imported incorrectly, it is difficult to remove it. There is no 'start-over' button in Lightspeed. It is your responsibility to prepare and review your import files and check the imported sales data. We recommend importing a few test files with 10-100 orders before importing 1000's.
Importing historical orders to a live Lightspeed Production Account.
If you have already gone live with LightSpeed, please be careful when importing your old sales orders. Importing sales orders will adjust inventory for the line items on the order. You can create a specific store location (e.g. Order Archive) in Lightspeed and we can import all orders to that location. This will ensure that inventory is not adjusted at your actual store locations.
Disclaimers
Liability for Data Loss
You understand that there are inherent risks in providing support to data systems which include but are not limited to data loss, data corruption, or complete loss of files or directories. You agree by using this import tool that Hyperspace will not be held liable for damages in the case of data loss or data corruption.