Lightspeed K-Series to Accounting | Understanding and Reconciling Transitory Balances

Within our integrations between Lightspeed K-Series and your accounting system, whether that's Xero, QuickBooks, MYOB Business, DATEV, or many others, you may have noticed differences when reconciling our final data against the Lightspeed business reports. At first glance, this understandably seems wrong, since this data should be accurate without requiring any manual work, and you should be able to trust our services without question.

That said, we also rely on the input data being correct, and this isn't always the case when it comes to transitory payments. These are receipts that are left open overnight, which isn't proper usage of Lightspeed K-Series and can lead to discrepancies further down the line.
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This article explains in detail how to understand and reconcile these differences, including practical examples, and outlines how to prevent this from happening going forward.

Understanding Tranistory Receipts and Balances

Transitory receipts are receipts that are created on a business day but not actually closed on that same business day. Instead, they're left open overnight and carried forward to the next business day.
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Your transitory balances have two statuses: carried over and carried forward.

Please see the following image as a reference:

Important: Ideally, transitory balances like this should never occur, as all receipts must be closed before end of day and before staff at the venue clock out. When this doesn't happen, it can negatively affect the systems involved, and in the case of these accounting integrations, it creates extra work for the bookkeepers who need to reconcile this data.
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Reconciling Lightspeed K-Series Data Affected by a Transitory Balance in Your Journal/Invoice

Below is an overview using sample sales figures to illustrate how transitory amounts appear within the Lightspeed K-Series business report, compared to how we report on the same day:

Checking the Lightspeed business report for this day, we find the following payments overview:

Adding up the amounts from Lightspeed Payments and Cash gives us €395.50 + €45.50 = €441, which matches the revenue reported in our journal (€56 + €385 = €441). However, this does not match the total sales reported in the Lightspeed business report itself, since even there, the reported revenue exceeds the reported payments.
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This discrepancy is caused by the transitory balance. The revenue from these unclosed receipts is included in the report, while the corresponding payments appear separately in the 'Total transitory' balance, shown just below the payment summary.

This occurs because Lightspeed includes the revenue from unclosed receipts in its report. Since our integration is based exclusively on closed data, this revenue is excluded on our end, which results in the difference observed above.
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Adding the sales figures from the Lightspeed business report, €520.50 + €56 = €567.50, and subtracting the total sales we actually sent, €441.00, gives a difference of €135.50. This matches the total transitory balance for that day, as shown in the image above.
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This is the exact method for reconciling these differences. As you can see, it does involve several steps, which is why it's essential to ensure all receipts are properly closed by end of day, preventing this kind of discrepancy from recurring going forward.

Important: Please note that although a receipt's payment may not appear in the journal right away, it is still processed and included once the corresponding tickets are officially closed. This means that on any given day, your accounting journal may show a higher revenue figure than the Lightspeed Business Report for that same day, since the journal reflects payments and the corresponding revenue as they are processed and closed, rather than as they appear on the report once consumed. The data itself stays accurate even with these transitory tickets, but it can make day-to-day reconciliation more difficult.

Resolve Tranistory Receipts and Balances

To actually resolve this, please make sure your venue(s) and the staff using Lightspeed K-Series understand how important it is to close these receipts before clocking out or completing the end-of-day process. Doing so will greatly improve the clarity between both systems and ensure the correct amounts are reflected right away.