Always have the stock you need.
With all that you have going on, you shouldn't have to worry about ordering the essentials you'll need every week. Recurring orders lets you automate your regular purchases on exactly the schedule you need - freeing you up to focus on more important things.
Keep in mind that simply automating reminders at a schedule is also an option - check out our guide on order reminders.
This guide covers how to create and schedule recurring orders.
What’s in this guide?
Before you begin
Create and schedule recurring Order
Frequently Asked Questions
Before you begin
You will need:
- Purchase enabled from Back Office - with an Advanced Purchase plan
- Have your suppliers added in Lightspeed
Follow along with the guides linked above before proceeding to the next steps 😉
Create and schedule recurring order
1. Launch Lightspeed Purchase from the Back Office
2. From the side menu on the left, select Recurring orders - then select New recurring order
3. Select a supplier from your list of added suppliers.
4. Select a category to see the assigned products to the supplier. You can also use the search bar to look for any category or product.
5. You can now enter the quantity of the stock you would need to order. Below, you will see a description of the other fields you can tweak.
- Stock & Par - Below each item, you will see your stock level and par level. Your stock level is updated based on your inventory settings. As for the Par level, you need to first set up your par level for a number to appear here. A dash will appear if this is not set.
- Order Number - Lightspeed generates this automatically.
- Delivery Date - The default date here will be tomorrow.
- Delivery Note - Here's where you can jot down more specifications about your order.
- Order Note (below product line) - In the image above, there’s an order note saying “inside their boxes” - this was added by selecting the product and entering this on the Note field.
6. If you would like to review the PDF of this purchase order, select the menu icon (three dots) on the upper right corner of the screen. Then, select View as PDF
Note - Make sure to complete your supplier’s details and your own business details so that the fields auto-populate on the pdf.
7. Once you are happy with your recurring order, select Schedule on the lower right side of the page where you are editing the order.
8. You will then be taken to this page where you can enter the following details about your recurring order:
- Email to - use this field to enter the email/s to which the recurring order will be sent.
Note - the site owner is automatically included as a recipient of the order. - Name of order - choose a name to easily recognise this recurring order in the future.
- Repeat on - choose the day/s of the weeks when this recurring order will be sent.
- Send order at - choose a time when the order will be sent.
- Starts on - choose a starting date for this recurring order.
- Repeat every - choose the frequency by which the order will be sent on the selected day of the week. Could be weekly; or every 2, 3, or 4 weeks.
Note - You will be reminded one hour before an automatic order is sent.
8. Select Review order
9. Make sure everything is all set - then select Save
The recurring order is created!
You can edit the Recurring order template completely from the Recurring orders page. After you have finalised the recurring order, you can adjust the drafts it will generate from the Purchase orders page.
Note - The draft from a recurring order template generates at 1:00AM on the morning of the it will be sent to the supplier. As long as the order is a “draft” and not yet “placed”, you can edit it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Once I made a recurring purchase, can I turn it off?
For this, you have two options. If you want the recurring purchase to stop permanently, you can delete it. If you would like to put it on hold up to a certain date, simply change the Start date of the recurring order.
Once I made a recurring purchase, can I edit it?
Recurring purchase orders are like templates. As such, you can edit the following:
- CC’ed emails (the site owner and the supplier are automatic recipients)
- Name of the order
- Schedule of the order (day, time, start date, frequency)
- Products to be purchased
- Quantity of the stock you wish to purchase
- Delivery note
How do I receive recurring purchase orders?
Recurring orders are sent according to their schedule and would show with a Placed status when sent. Then, they are received the same way as regular purchase orders. For this, you can refer to our guide on purchasing with Lightspeed.
What is the difference between recurring orders and order reminders?
Recurring purchase orders are actual orders that are sent automatically and repeatedly on the specified schedule. They notify the Lightspeed user one hour in advance before automatically sending the purchase order to the chosen email/s, to the site owner, and to the supplier.
Meanwhile, Order reminders are email prompts for the Lightspeed user towards an action - like create a purchase order, send a draft, and etc. This reminder sends to the chosen email/s and to the site owner.
Do I need to pay for this feature?
Features are included in different Purchase Plans - so check if this is already included in yours. If you need a plan upgrade it's a fine day for a power-up! Talk to us.
What else can I do to optimise my purchasing?
- Another automation option is to send scheduled order reminders to yourself. Instead of automatically sending the purchase orders on a schedule (as in recurring orders), this simply sends you automatic reminders.
- Need an instant decision on what to purchase from your suppliers? Recommended orders allows you to instantly see all that you need to buy from your supplier and send an autogenerated order with just a few taps.
- Once your stock items are entered, you can try entering your recipes. With Lightspeed’s recipe add-on, every time a product is sold (or entered as wastage), it will automatically update your stock count of how much of the ingredients are left.