Lightyear Reviews

Pros

I love the automation of data extraction and the built in approval process Lightyear has to offer. It helps me to get my clients data correct, having the correct expenses and payables, and it means I can get multiple levels of approvals before the invoice hits the GL.

Cons

Sometimes the OCR doesn't work the way I expect, but I know they are constantly improving the software and I'm confident it will be better in future.

Alternatives Considered

Hubdoc and Dext Prepare

Reasons for Switching to Lightyear

Lightyear data extraction was much better than the rest and the built in approval process means I can ease the pressure from the business owners and put it back on the staff, but the business owners still have ultimate control of the suppliers.

Pros

The invoice approval function was the reason for initially coming across to Lightyear but the statement reconciliation process was a hidden surprise that has enabled my last remaining paper based clients to take the leap to being completely paperless. The integrity of the data being exported to the accounting software is much better than other programs.

Cons

My clients who use purchase orders are currently needing to batch together the PO pdf & supplier invoice images before sending to Lightyear which would be amazing if we could either match them up within the app, or issue PO's direct from the app which are then able to be viewed with the supplier invoice.

Alternatives Considered

Dext Prepare

Reasons for Choosing Lightyear

My clients needed a program which offered a layered approvals process

Switched From

Dext Prepare

Reasons for Switching to Lightyear

It was some time ago now and I can't recall all the other programs we looked at, but Lightyear really came out as the only contender due to the price point and the approvals process.

Pros

Smooth integration process with ERP and a user-friendly interface with a lot of functionality

Cons

No complaints. The experience during and post on-boarding was great.

Pros

Nothing to like about light year it is doesn’t work simple

Cons

Slow, Unstable, inaccurate ocr of invoices causing excessive manual re-entry of invoices, customer support non existent as they can’t do anything as it is a terrible system I have waited for improvements over the last 3 months they haven’t happened stay from lightyear find something else

Pros

It's ease of use and flexibility in being able to move approvals

Cons

In Dashboard, looking at the user list, it would be great if you could click on the user name and get a list of their approvals

Pros

We love how this product enables our clients to check & approve their invoices before the invoices land in Xero. We know that anything in Xero is checked & ready to be paid. Easy for multiple people to have access & sign off. All AP is in one place & finding historical invoices is a breeze.

Cons

Reading OCR receipts has been a bit behind other competitors but improvement is coming through really quickly.

Alternatives Considered

Hubdoc

Reasons for Choosing Lightyear

Controls are tighter in Lightyear but the product is so easy to use & can easily be customised to the level of control that our clients need. Visibility of the flow of invoices through the approval process is perfect. The Dashboard makes it so easy for our Corporate clients to manage their AP really well and for us to manage the bookkeeping for our clients. All our clients from corporates to sole traders love Lightyear - they can have access to the data they need 24/7.

Switched From

Dext Prepare

Reasons for Switching to Lightyear

When we looked at Hubdoc about 18 months ago, Lightyear was already far more advanced than what Hubdoc was offering.

Pros

There are so many things I love about Lightyear. The new statement reconciliation feature though is a game changer! Lightyear tells you what invoices are missing and allows you to contact the supplier to request missing invoices direct from the software. Amazing!!!

Cons

There's not much I don't like about the software, and the things that I would like are already in the works.

Alternatives Considered

Dext Prepare

Reasons for Choosing Lightyear

Invitbox was been owned by Reckon and had not supported or upgraded for some time. The original developers for Invitbox took it back and rebuilt it from the ground up. Invitbox, even unsupported and without upgrades, was an awesome piece of software and superseded the functionality of it's competitors such as ReceiptBank. Since the original team was coming back on board, it was a no-brainer.

Reasons for Switching to Lightyear

With Lightyear, you can delegate approvals into groups, so if you have multiple cost centres like the hotels that we do the bookkeeping for, the Chef isn't seeing bills which need to be approved by the Cellarman. Also, you can have suppliers that you don't want everyone to see, so you can select that only certain people see them. As well as multi-level approvals so the General Manager can check off and I as the bookkeeper can check the data is accurate before bringing it into the accounting software. In conjunction with the integration with Xero happens within seconds so you're not waiting for your bills to come across from one software into another.

Pros

The support from the team is fantastic and are always on hand to help and assist.
Feedback and suggestions on the system are welcomed and implemented if possible and useful.
Invoices no longer need manually entering!
Option to automate the process of receiving invoices entirely, doing away with any need to upload - instead just get them emailed directly into Light Year.

Cons

A few of the options appear to be placed on pages I wouldn't expect, but nothing particularly bad.

Alternatives Considered

EzzyBills, Dext Prepare and AutoEntry

Reasons for Switching to Lightyear

The other options were either underdeveloped, or offered no a very strict, uncompromising service that did not fit within our company. They also relied too heavily on OCR. Light Year while newer than some of it's competitors, chose a different approach and worked with us to see if their solution could help, and even added and updated features to make it fit more into our company.

Pros

Every step of the process has been excellent and the ongoing support has continued to be excellent.
The initial contact was responsive and guided through the set up to allow us start processing quickly.
The product is logical to follow and easy to view and provides options every step of the way.
The data extraction is very accurate and adaptable to different supplier invoices and the mapping team is very quick. This is more accurate than our previous software.
To email queries from within Lightyear saves so much time and hassle looking for emails and provides great transparency.
Separation of users to their department only
Choosing where we export to Xero has been essential to facilitate approval levels
Lightyear continues to improve their
Service to queries has been responsive and solutions are specific to our company using information and not a regurgitating the help function.

Cons

There is a lot of functionality and detail so can be a little overwhelming.
Support videos and notes focus on administrators but could find information on guiding from the other user roles perceptive after initial guide when first login

Pros

Easy to integrate and setup - start to finish - 4 weeks.
Great support team, very helpful and very thorough.
Price is very competitive, especially the setup costs.
Did what it said it could do and integrated with our systems.

Cons

Duplicate invoices dont get caught until after the workflow.
Cannot bulk upload historical invoices from previous system (Dext)

Alternatives Considered

MYOB Business, Dext Prepare, NetSuite and Xero

Reasons for Choosing Lightyear

No approval workflow in Dext. Needed this + integration to Netsuite.

Switched From

Dext Prepare

Pros

What I like most about Lightyear is how easy and versatile it is to use. It saves so much time! Invoices come into Lightyear and are identifiable immediately. Important information from the invoice is automatically read and displayed. Invoice details are easily updated, added and authorised in the one program. The beauty of this is that it happens before it reaches our accounting software which makes the process much more flexible and accurate.

All our invoices and statements are stored electronically in this clever filing cabinet and any one granted access can see the actual invoice PDF anytime and quickly. Much easier and more secure than within accounting programs or Outlook.

If a supplier has sent an invoice to lightyear, it doesn't go missing. It can't be lost. if it can't be read by Lightyear, it bounces out to your appointed email.

Lightyear provides a thorough audit trail. Every time an invoices is read, edited, sent, authorised or declined, etc it is recorded.

Cons

As we use SAP accounting software, which is not cloud based, our software integration took a bit longer. The team at Lightyear (then Invitbox) worked with our SAP provider helping them write and produce the integration document.

Pros

Lightyear makes invoice processing and filing efficient and time effective. I have now set up departments within the parent comapany so we can split our food cost per department easily. It integrates with our POS system Bepoz, which our Beverage Manager is extremly happy with. It makes his stocktakes more efficient and takes him less time and also integrates with our accountimg system MYOB which is extremely efficient.

Cons

Sometimes the export to MYOB lags and I have to do it numerous times before they actually move across. I can live with that!

Pros

Complete visibility across supplier invoices either via the dashboard as a quick view or in detail across all stages of approvals. This is especially helpful at the end of the month to see if all invoices have been through the entire approval process and exported to our accounting system before close off.
Search functionality is helpful and shows which stage of the process each invoice is at - search results can be exported.
The audit trails and notes show full history of the life of the invoice and save a lot of external communication and queries.
Implementation was easy after the demonstrations given to us by [SENSITIVE CONTENT] who took the time to understand what we wanted (which was a little bit out of the ordinary!) and configure the settings accordingly. We gained confidence in Lightyear through the demonstration/training process and the additional webinars.

Cons

Looking forward to enhancements to the mobile app to allow more functionality while on site.

Pros

The functionality of Lightyear is incredible. This solution fully incorporates digitisation of all aspects of the AP function including data extraction from invoices, a full invoice depository, approval workflows via email and app, audit trails, seamless integration with our accounting system, automated supplier statement reconciliation, to name but a few. It can even verify supplier invoice line pricing to agreed pricing product price lists!

The system is user intuitive, with the process was so natural that rolling this out across the team was simplicity itself.

And pricing is scalable to usage, providing totally affordable Rolls Royce functionality to any organisation.

Cons

Have found no cons to date! Thee are certain upgrades in the pipeline for approver interface via the app and email which will further enhance the already existing superiority of this product.

Pros

I love that all my actions can be taken out in one place - it's stores/archives all information received and is easily searched upon.

Cons

I would like to see an option to archive 'Service Reports' - it's not always just invoices and statements that come through but often a 'supporting' document that I don't like to delete.

Pros

Software is very easy to use and to understand. Screens provide relevant invoice information.
Corrections on invoices can be made easily if required by the user.
Adding notes to invoices is very helpful for future reference.
Looking up archived invoices is also very useful. Creditors statements can also be stored so no need to print them.
Setting up new users is very easy and quick.
Invoices that need to be mapped by Lightyear are mapped in a timely manner .
There are regular improvements and updates on Lightyear which benefit the user.

Cons

Hard code description against suppliers when it is always the same description that needs to be entered

Pros

Easy to setup and maintain. Excellent support from staff at all levels of Lightyear.

Cons

The export into our POS can be a little clunky. This may be from the POS end but it does still provide a level of efficiency with stock management in POS.

Pros

The ease of use is exceptional and has made the implementation easy for our organisation. End users have said how much they love the product and all our admin teams and managers have embraced the change which is fantastic. It means that the finance team now have full visibility of where there are backlogs in invoices being sent in for payment which helps when suppliers have queries. The audit trail and approval listing is fantastic.

Cons

It may have helped to get some more feedback from a similar organisation on how they adapted their processes to fit in with Lightyear but the Lightyear team is very helpful and patient so we got up to speed quickly .

Pros

From Invoice mapping to statement reconciliation, it remains the best system I have used. Missing invoices are easily located by the auto -mailing system to Suppliers.

Cons

Any problems that I have encountered have been handled by the Support team (or just the chat service ) so I do not have any issues.

Pros

Have always found Lightyear to be a terrific and easy to use product. Dual authorisation of bills is something that many products do not have and the data extraction is very fast and accurate.

Cons

It can sometimes have speed issues and lag.

Pros

The ease and simplicity at which it operates. The seamless integration with Xero. The transparency, accountability and control it allows.

Cons

No cons at this stage. There is some initial set up work and testing to be done but the more you use the more efficient it becomes.

Pros

This is so beneficial for our purchase invoices. Saves so much entry work. Customer service is fast on chat and if need be the issue can be discussed over the phone. Which I find most useful. Customer service always helpful and will fix up the problem via joining your screen if needed

Cons

Credit expiry is not warned when it is coming to an expiry point.

Pros

Lightyear has been a critical and very beneficial piece of software for our business. The ease of use combined with the outstanding customer service has meant we were able to build and launch lightyear very quickly and start using it to assist our growing business.

Cons

Hard to pick something we dont like. If anything, search capability can be improved within purchase orders but the team are constantly working and upgrading the software.

Pros

Of all the software that I use, for me Lightyear is the best. It provides automated information which made my work easier. You can also find solutions to your issues/concern through Knowledge Base or you can just simply chat lightyear Team and they will respond to you in just a snap. Would highly recommend of course.

Cons

None for me to be honest :)Because, If I wanted to know a thing or If I experienced some issues , I can just chat the support team for assistance :):):)

Pros

The ability to set up different team members to approve invoices, as well as keeping all invoices in one central location, uploaded via suppliers. Integration to Xero is also fantastic.

Cons

The learning curve for new users takes some work.