A PLU (Price Look-Up Code) is a code that identifies the corresponding product or modifier value. The Lightspeed integration works primarily based on these PLUs.
To successfully process orders, we match the PLU sent by the Delivery platform to the PLU in your Point of Sale (POS). You can think of the PLU as the source of all information on a product.
PLUs and Lightspeed
If you have multiple locations, please read the Multiple locations PLU article
In Lightspeed, each product automatically has a unique PLU assigned. When creating a product in Lightspeed, the PLU automatically starts with the first letters of each word in the category name. For example, a product in the category "Fresh Salads" will get the PLU FS1. We recommend using an easy-to-manage scheme to make your life easier in order to quickly identify products based on PLU.(BUR001, BUR002 for example; for "Burgers")
Please note that the PLU of a product also affects the following in Lightspeed:
Print order of products: when printing in the kitchen you can sort by PLU (alphabetically).
Lightspeed specials:
You can create a product with PLU "fs1", "FS1", "Fs1", "fS1". These will all be separate products, however, we really advise you not to do this, as PLUs are not case sensitive everywhere in Lightspeed. This can cause several issues, especially when managing multiple locations.
Modifier PLU and Lightspeed
When using modifiers in any online order platform, you are required to set a PLU for the modifier value.
Lightspeed does not check if this is a unique PLU or not. This has multiple reasons. For example: when ordering something in a store, the modifier might come at a charge, or it might be free depending on the product. As many external stock-keeping platforms also work with these PLUs, you want one stock for one specific modifier item.
To help you in the future, we recommend the following naming scheme for modifiers:
Let's say you have a Modifier group called "Toppings", we recommend building the PLU as follows:
Start with M, for Modifier. This will help you (and us) identify that this is a modifier when building menus for your online ordering platforms.
Take the two first characters of the modifier group name, which is TO in this case for "Toppings". Add a dash (-) and just number them starting with 001.
You are in no way obligated to follow this advice, but it can save a lot of time when updating menus.
