If you’re selling your business or buying an existing one that uses Lightspeed, transferring site ownership is simple. However, consider the following to determine if a site transfer is right for you.
Key Points to Consider
Transferring site ownership preserves all historical sales data and reporting. The following will also remain intact (you can modify these later if needed):
- Products and POS layout
- Hardware settings and connections (POS devices, EFTPOS machines, and printers)
- Integrations and their mapping
- Features and their settings
- Users and their permissions (you can change the permissions of the existing owner or remove them if necessary)
When to Transfer Site Ownership
We recommend transferring site ownership if:
- An existing employee is taking over.
- You’re creating or setting up franchises.
- You’re maintaining the same hardware and happy to share sales data.
A site transfer requires the current owner’s permission to protect sales data privacy. Without this, the new owner must set up a new company, which will not retain the previous sales history. For more information, refer to the New Owners section below.
Note: Integrations are linked to individual accounts. Ensure you know which account details are used for logging into third-party software.
Tip: This guide is for transferring site ownership and subscription to another user. For changes to your name or email, simply update your User Profile.
Guide Contents
- Before You Begin
- Transfer Site Ownership - Existing Owner | 1 minute
- Transfer Site Ownership - New Owner | 1-2 business days
- Transferring Your Lightspeed Payments Terminal | 7-10 business days
-
New Owners
- Create a New Account
- Adding a New Company
- Setting Up Your Lightspeed
- Next Steps
- Frequently Asked Questions -
Before You Begin
Please note the following:
- Only the current site owner or a Lightspeed employee can perform a site transfer.
- If you are not the current owner and require our assistance, you must provide evidence of the owner’s permission for the transfer.
- To expedite the process, the new owner should add their billing payment information in advance.
- If you have a Lightspeed Payments terminal, you'll need to transfer ownership through a seperate process. Steps to transfer your payments terminal can be found in this guide.
Transferring Site Ownership - Existing Owner
Note - The new owner must already have accepted an invitation to the site and be given admin access (Is this user an admin? YES).
- You must be logged in as the site owner
- From the Back Office, select Subscriptions
If you have more than one site, you will be prompted to select which one.
-
Scroll down to Site management and select transfer ownership
Note - If you are signed up with Lightspeed Payments, follow the steps within the guide here to transfer ownership.
- Select which user will be the new owner of the site
- Select Send Invitation. You will see a dialogue box to confirm the action, select Send
- An email will be sent to the new owner. This contains a link to accept the transfer of ownership, which will need to be accepted before this process can be finalised
- The new owner will now be prompted to update their payment details which they can do if they have not already done so.
The invitation has a limited lifespan. If the invite times out, you must resend.
Transferring Site Ownership - New Owner
If you are not the existing site owner and require our team to process the site transfer, you must provide evidence that the existing site owner has given permission for the site to be transferred.
This can be an email or phone call from the existing site owner to your Account Manager. If you do not know who your Account Manager is, please reach out to our Support team.
Once you have provided evidence to your Account Manager, if you are not a user on the site, you will receive an invitation to the site and be given admin access, you must accept this.
- Update your payment details. This is a required step.
- Your Account Manager will then transfer the site to you
New Owners
If you cannot obtain the current owner's permission, you will need to create a new Lightspeed account or add a new company to your existing account.
Steps:
-
Create a New Account
- For new users without an existing subscription.
-
Add a New Company
- For those with existing subscriptions (e.g., multi-site venue owners).
Setting Up Your Lightspeed
Now that you have created a Lightspeed site, you can go ahead and start setting up your Back Office and your hardware.
If the same network equipment and printers are being used, we recommend working with the existing owner to copy the settings of the printer setup and register setup to the new account.
Next Steps
- Get familiar with Lightspeed’s features. Watch our POS Basics Video to learn how to use the POS.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I transfer the ownership of my Lightspeed Payments Terminal to the new owner?
After transferring site ownership, the new owner should follow the instructions in this article. For assistance, contact our support team.
Can I transfer a Lightspeed account or site without sharing previous data?
No, transferring site ownership will include access to all historical data, products, and users.
Do I need to contact anyone after transferring ownership?
No, but we recommend that the new owner contacts our Account Management team to ensure they are fully onboarded. If you don’t know your Account Manager, reach out to our Support team.