The Lightspeed extension

What it adds to Lightspeed

bike.tools for Lightspeed is a Chrome extension that adds bike.tools to Lightspeed Retail's own pages, so nobody has to switch tabs. Free with every shop (see Free tools):

• On a workorder: Receive while the bike is still in the appointment status, Presets, labor and item lines that save as you type, the notes side by side, and the tab named for the customer and bike. Status buttons, the bike picker and the bike card from Bike Archive (the bike's torque specs, hanger and frame standards) are there too once an admin turns them on.
• On a customer: their bikes and recent workorders, and a note when a new customer looks like one you already have.
• A QR code on the shop tag and the customer's copy that Lightspeed prints.
• The toolbar popup lists recent workorders.

With add-ons (see Add-ons and pricing):

• Quick Book under Service, and Alt+Q anywhere.
• With the Phone tools, Photos (once an admin turns it on), Scan part and Read with phone for the serial number, all from your phone.
• With Status pages, a Status button on the workorder with the customer's status link.

Install it

1. In bike.tools, open Settings → Lightspeed extension and press Download the extension. The zip has your bike.tools address filled in.
2. Unzip it somewhere it can stay (Chrome loads it from that folder).
3. In Chrome, open chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode (top right), press Load unpacked and choose the unzipped folder.
4. Sign in to bike.tools in the same Chrome, then open a workorder in Lightspeed: the tools are on the page.

It needs Chrome 120 or newer, and works in other Chromium browsers (Edge, Brave) the same way. It isn't in the Chrome Web Store yet, which is why it's loaded unpacked.

Sign in

There is nothing to connect and no token to paste. Sign in to bike.tools in the same Chrome, and the extension is signed in as you; the popup's Sign in to bike.tools button takes you there and back. Signing out of bike.tools signs the extension out too.

Which shop it works on

The extension reads which Lightspeed account the page belongs to and picks the bike.tools shop connected to it. It refuses to act on any other Lightspeed account, so a laptop used at two shops is safe. If more than one of your shops could apply, choose one in the extension's options (right-click its icon → Options).

On a workorder

Status buttons, Photos, the bike picker and the bike card are off until an owner or admin turns them on under Settings → Lightspeed extension → Modules, so the workorder stays as Lightspeed lays it out.

• With Status pages, Status opens a small card: the customer's status link, Copy and View status page.
• Status buttons beside the workorder's status menu: your Lightspeed statuses in their colours, one tap each. Lightspeed saves the change as if you'd picked it from the menu (if it can't, bike.tools moves it and the page reloads). With Status pages, the button for your Ready status also copies the customer's status link. Owners and admins choose which statuses show under Settings → Lightspeed extension → Modules; Done & Paid is left out unless you add it, because ringing out the sale sets it.
• Presets at the top lists your job presets. Pick one and its labor and parts are added to the workorder at Lightspeed's prices, labor under whoever is logged in to Lightspeed; the page then reloads to show them, unless you're editing a line.
• Receive shows while the workorder is still in the appointment status. It moves the workorder to your received status and reloads the page, so Lightspeed's form can't save the old status back.
• Workorder lines save as you type. Open a labor or item line and each change (description, hours and minutes, quantity, price or override cost, discount, employee, the checkboxes) is saved the same way Lightspeed's own Save would, with or without a description, and only that line and the totals redraw, so the editor stays open. Save becomes Done, and Cancel becomes Undo changes.
• The internal note and the customer note sit side by side and the note box grows with its text. bike.tools never reads what's in the internal note.
• With the Phone tools, Photos shows a QR code. Scan it with your phone and take photos (or choose them from the phone's library): each lands on the workorder as it's taken, up to 33 a workorder, and shows in the strip under the notes. Press a photo to open it, the trash can to delete it, and, if your shop shows photos on status pages, the globe to show it to the customer. If you turn on Copy each photo to the workorder's images in Lightspeed too, they're also added to Lightspeed's own images where Lightspeed's API allows it.
• With the Phone tools, Scan part shows a QR code for your phone, and a box for a USB barcode scanner. On the phone, press Scan with the camera and hold up a part, or Read a photo of the code, or type the number. Any phone reads any barcode or QR code: UPC, EAN, Code 128, Code 39, Code 93, Codabar, ITF, GS1 DataBar, Data Matrix, PDF417, Aztec and more. The phone draws a box around each code it sees; as soon as it reads a good one the picture stops and it says Sent, and Redo goes back to the camera for the next part. When there are several codes in view, they're numbered for you to choose. A GS1 label or link gives its product number; a QR code that's only a web link isn't a part, and the phone says so, with Send anyway to send it to the card just to copy. Once the phone sends something, the card lists each code with the time it came in, in place of the QR code (Show QR code brings it back): click a code to copy it, Search items puts it in Lightspeed's item search, and Use as serial makes it the bike's serial number. Each code is looked up in Lightspeed (UPC, EAN, then your own item codes): one match is added to the workorder, several let you choose, and none puts the code in Lightspeed's item search to look further. Close the card and the page reloads to show the new lines, unless you're editing a line, when it asks you to save it and reload yourself.
• With the Phone tools, Read with phone, beside the bike's serial number, opens a QR code. Type the serial on your phone and press Send, or read its barcode or QR sticker with Read a sticker with the camera or Read a photo of the code, on any phone: it's sent as soon as it's read, and Redo reads another. Each one is listed on the card with the time it came in; press Use as serial on the right one to fill in the serial field, which flashes, then save the workorder as usual. Click a serial to copy it. A code that isn't a serial (a web link, say) can be sent with Send anyway, and is listed only to copy.
• A phone code works for 10 minutes, for that workorder only, and stops working when you close the card or press Done on the phone. New code makes another.

From Bike Archive, free with every shop:

• The bike picker sits above the bike's description. Search Bike Archive (make, model, year) and pick the bike: the description is filled in with its proper name, asking first before replacing something you typed, and bike.tools remembers which bike it is for this workorder and the customer's item. Save the workorder as usual. Change picks another.
• The bike card sits under the bike's fields: the torque specs (with Copy specs), the derailleur hanger and the frame's standards, with a link to the bike's Bike Archive page. Press the bike's name to fold it away; it stays folded in that browser. If nobody has picked the bike yet, the card asks: Is this the …? when Bike Archive has one clear match for the description, a few bikes to choose from when it has several, or Which bike is this? with a search. Specs only show once someone has said which bike it is. When Bike Archive hasn't got a brand's torque specs yet, the card says so instead of showing none. Not this bike forgets the pick.
• Print tag on the card opens the workorder's ticket page and prints it (see The workorder ticket).
• Under Settings → Lightspeed extension → Modules, each can also add a line to the internal note: the picker a "Bike:" line with the Bike Archive link, the card a "Ticket:" line with the ticket page's link when a bike is picked. It's added on the page only, never twice, and you save the workorder as usual.

Job presets

A preset is a named set of Lightspeed labor and parts you often add together, like "Brake bleed, both ends". Owners and admins build them on the Job presets page in bike.tools (under Shop): search Lightspeed by name or SKU, tick the items, then set each part's quantity and each labor line's minutes. Archive a preset to take it out of the menu. Everyone on the shop can see the page.

On a customer

• Bikes & jobs at the top of a customer's record opens a panel with their bikes (from Lightspeed, with the Bike Archive bike when someone picked it) and their last ten workorders, each with its status, a link to open it in Lightspeed and one to its ticket page.
• On a new customer, once you've typed a phone number or email, bike.tools looks it up in Lightspeed. If someone already has it, a note says Looks like … is already a customer with Open their record. It never stops you saving, in case it's a different person.

Printed tags

There is nothing to set up or paste into Lightspeed's print templates: print the workorder as usual. As Lightspeed opens the print, the extension adds a QR code under the header:

• On the shop tag, a code for the workorder's ticket page in bike.tools (the job, the bike's torque specs and its photos), for the mechanic's phone.
• On the customer's copy, with Status pages, a short link (bike.tools/ and ten letters and numbers) to their status page, with "Scan to follow your repair". Making a new status link for the workorder retires the old short link too.

Choose what each copy gets, or none, under Settings → Lightspeed extension → Modules → QR codes on printed tags. If bike.tools can't be reached, the tag prints without a code after a moment rather than waiting. Sale receipts aren't changed.

Turning tools on and off

Each thing the extension adds to Lightspeed is a module. Owners and admins turn them on or off for the whole shop under Settings → Lightspeed extension → Modules, where some also have settings (which statuses become buttons, what the QR codes on printed tags open). Anyone can override a module in their own browser in the extension's options, under What runs in this browser: Shop's choice, On in this browser or Off in this browser. A module that needs an add-on the shop hasn't got says Needs … (Photos, Scan a part and Serial from the camera say Needs Phone tools) and stays off. Changes reach the extension within ten minutes, or at once when you reload Lightspeed.

Quick Book

With the AI integration add-on, Service → Quick Book (or Alt+Q) opens Quick Book as a page of its own where Lightspeed's page goes, with Lightspeed's sidebar left as it is. On the left is the new workorder, laid out like Lightspeed's: the customer at the top (their name and contact details, or First name, Last name, Mobile and Email to fill in for someone new), the bike, Employee and Status, Date In, Due, Hook In and Hook Out, the Receipt Note and Internal Note, and the lines. On the right is the chat: type the note there and press Enter (or the check) and it fills in the workorder, and type again to change it. Change anything on the left yourself, then press Create Workorder in the top bar; Lightspeed opens on the new workorder. Close (or Esc) goes back to the page you were on and keeps the draft, and Start over clears the chat and the workorder. Without the add-on it says so, with a link to Add-ons. See Running the day.

The assistant

With the AI integration add-on, Assistant in Lightspeed's top bar (or Alt+A) opens a panel at the right. Ask in your own words: about a customer, a workorder or a part ("is the Marlin for Joseph Thomas done?", "do we have 11-speed chains?"), or how to do something in Lightspeed. It looks things up in your own synced data, and it can do a few things on the page for you: open a workorder, a customer, a new customer form, a customer's bike, an item, or the Work Orders, Schedule, Finished Orders, Customers, Item Search and Service pages; fill in a customer's name, phone numbers, email and address; and open a customer's tabs or a workorder's Labor form. Each thing it did is listed under its answer, and the fields it filled are outlined. It never saves: check what it filled and press Save Changes yourself. It doesn't change a workorder's fields, make workorders (that's Quick Book), or touch sales, the register or payments. The conversation stays as you move around Lightspeed until you close the panel; Start over clears it. Turn it off under Settings → Lightspeed extension (Lightspeed assistant).

Who is doing what

Whoever is logged in to Lightspeed is who the extension acts as, under their Lightspeed name: labor from a preset, photos and Quick Book workorders are theirs. Switch employees in Lightspeed and the extension follows. Each Lightspeed employee is linked to a bike.tools account under Settings → Employees (an account with the same email is linked on its own), so "Mine" means the same in both places.

Updating

When the extension is updated, download it again from Settings → Lightspeed extension, unzip the new one over the old folder, then press the reload arrow on the extension's card at chrome://extensions. The card shows the version it's running.

What it can and cannot see

Only the extension's background part talks to bike.tools, with your bike.tools sign-in and headers no website can forge. The content it adds to Lightspeed's pages lives in its own shadow roots, so Lightspeed's styles and ours never mix, and it reads only what the panels show: the logged-in employee, the customer and workorder on screen, and the labor and item lines you edit. It never reads the internal note's text, and it never talks to bike.tools from the page itself. On a new customer, the phone numbers and email you type are sent to bike.tools only to look them up in your Lightspeed; they aren't kept.