With order sync on, every WooCommerce order is recorded as a sale on your Lightspeed Retail X-Series register, so online and in-store sales sit in one place and stock is deducted in Lightspeed by the sale. Sales only go one way: sales made in Lightspeed are never brought into WooCommerce. Finish Set up Lightspeed X-Series first, because only orders whose products are all linked to Lightspeed can sync.
When you’d use this
- Report on online and in-store sales together in Lightspeed.
- Mark online orders as paid and closed in Lightspeed with their own payment type.
- Void the Lightspeed sale when an online order is cancelled or refunded.
Turn on order sync
1. Check your tax rates
Every sale line needs a Lightspeed tax, and the plugin creates the taxes it needs from your WooCommerce tax rates (see How taxes sync below). Review your rates under WooCommerce » Settings » Tax first. Compound tax rates aren’t supported.
2. Create a payment type in Lightspeed (optional)
To mark synced orders as paid, create a payment type in Lightspeed just for WooCommerce, named something like "WooCommerce". Keep it: deleting it later makes sales fail to sync.
3. Turn on Sync orders
Go to Lightspeed » Settings » Orders, tick Sync orders, and choose your payment type under Record payments as, or leave Do not record payments. Click Save changes. Saving this tab also sends your tax rates to Lightspeed.
4. Place a test order
Place an order for a synced product and open it under WooCommerce » Orders. The order notes show "Order synced to Lightspeed (Sale ID: …)" with a link to your Lightspeed sales, and the orders list shows a check mark in the Lightspeed column. Find the sale on your register in Lightspeed.
How order sync works
An order syncs when it’s placed, on either checkout, and again every time its status changes, so the Lightspeed sale follows the order. Orders sync only when:
- Every product in the order is linked to Lightspeed. An order with even one unlinked product isn’t sent at all; its stock still goes to Lightspeed product by product.
- The connection is ready (a register is chosen), and the order isn’t a draft or in the trash.
- It isn’t a subscription. Renewal orders are ordinary orders and do sync.
Orders placed before you turned on Sync orders sync the next time their status changes.
What’s in the sale
- One sale line per product, with its quantity, its price before discounts and excluding tax, the line discount (including coupons), and the tax.
- A note reading "WooCommerce order" and the order number, plus the customer’s order note if there is one.
- The customer, if they’re already linked to a Lightspeed customer (see How customer sync works).
- Pickup when the order needs no shipping, delivery otherwise.
Shipping and fees aren’t sent, so the Lightspeed sale total can be lower than the WooCommerce order total.
Sale status
| WooCommerce order status | Lightspeed sale |
|---|---|
| Pending payment, On hold | Parked |
| Processing | Pending |
| Completed | Closed |
| Cancelled, Refunded, Failed | Voided |
When Record payments as is set, a paid order gets one payment of that type and its sale is closed, whatever its status. The payment covers what was sent as sale lines: for each line, quantity × (price + tax), minus the line discount. A payment is only recorded once per order.
Refunds and cancellations
Cancelling an order, or refunding it in full, voids its Lightspeed sale. Partial refunds aren’t sent to Lightspeed by default; developers can turn on the experimental partial refund sync described in the developer reference. Deleting or trashing an order doesn’t remove its sale.
How taxes sync
Each WooCommerce tax rate is matched to a Lightspeed tax with the same name and rate, or created in Lightspeed when there isn’t one. New rates sync when you add them, when you save the Orders tab, and when you save WooCommerce » Settings » Tax. A rate that has already synced keeps its Lightspeed tax: editing its name or percentage in WooCommerce doesn’t change it in Lightspeed. When several rates apply to one product, the plugin creates a combined Lightspeed tax named after them, such as "State + County". A product with no tax uses Lightspeed’s built-in no tax rate.
Don’t edit or delete the taxes the plugin creates in Lightspeed, or sales using them fail to sync.
When a sync fails
If Lightspeed is busy or temporarily down, the plugin tries again on its own, at growing intervals, for up to an hour after the first attempt, and notes each try on the order ("Lightspeed sync failed: … Retrying at …"). Other errors aren’t retried. The order gets the note "Lightspeed sync failed:" with the reason, and its stock is sent to Lightspeed directly so stock stays right ("Product stock was sent to Lightspeed directly because the sale could not be synced.").
After you fix the cause, change the order’s status (for example to On hold and back to Processing) to sync it again. If the failure note said stock was sent directly, the new sale deducts that stock in Lightspeed again, so check the products’ stock in Lightspeed afterward.
Common issues
An order didn’t sync and has no Lightspeed note
The order has a product that isn’t linked to Lightspeed, or Sync orders was off. Link the product (see Sync one product), then change the order’s status to sync it.
"Lightspeed sync failed: Lightspeed rejected the order data — check the line items, taxes, and customer details."
Lightspeed refused the sale. Turn on Debug mode (Lightspeed » Settings » General), change the order’s status to sync it again, and read the full error in the order’s activity on Lightspeed » Sync » Orders or in the kestrel-lightspeed-pos log. Check that the products’ taxes match between WooCommerce and Lightspeed, and that the payment type in Record payments as still exists. More fixes are on Troubleshoot Lightspeed X-Series.
"Compound tax rates are not supported for syncing orders to Lightspeed."
The order combines a compound rate with others. Replace the compound rate with an ordinary rate in WooCommerce » Settings » Tax.
"Lightspeed sync failed: Lightspeed connection expired or unauthorized — reconnect from the Lightspeed settings."
Go to Lightspeed » Connection and click Reconnect to Lightspeed X-Series, then change the order’s status to sync it again.
The sale total in Lightspeed is lower than the order total
Shipping and fees aren’t sent to Lightspeed. That’s expected; the products, discounts and taxes should match.
A partial refund isn’t in Lightspeed
Partial refunds don’t sync by default. Record the return in Lightspeed by hand, or ask a developer about the experimental filter.