User Reviews Overview
About Lightyear
Lightyear is a cloud-based accounts payable solution designed to help businesses automate data entry by extracting details from invoices, credit notes, bank statements and receipts, streamline approvals through customizable...
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- Industry: Nonprofit Organisation Management
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Terrific Service and a Continually Improving Product
Overall, it's been fantastic. There is no such thing as a perfect system, but it is the people behind the software which really impress me. The fact that when things go awry, it is so easy to open the instant chat and speak to [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] is a great touch. The service is paramount. I've had issues which were solved overnight which comes to show they really do listen.
Pros
Lightyear is visually pleasing-it's quite simple to use and understand. From the user perspective who inputs data on invoices and approves them, it's straightforward and the layout of the software does not show you more than what you need to see, however, underneath the simple processes there is complexity. Lightyear makes supplier creation, GL code settings linked to export files such as Excel, and GST codes etc are somehow made simple to set up. One thing I find particularly great is whenever I input an ABN number during the Supplier Creation process, it autofills the Supplier Name field. Additionally, this is a drop down menu, so i am able to choose ANY of the Business Names linked to this ABN.
Cons
Sometimes, there have been system bugs and I'm unable to export data for a brief amount of time, or when we top up credits to use the system, the old credits are not rolled over their expiry date. It would be great if there was a notification in place to let us know that our credits are expiring soon or we are running low. Also, there are some things which cannot be customised. For example, the Export to File which is a function that exports invoice data into a spreadsheet, cannot be modified from my end. Lightyear do add features from time to time, but I'm not sure if consumer recommendations are actually involved in the process.
- Industry: Nonprofit Organisation Management
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Lightyear works as promised
Lightyear provided more accurate invoices from different kinds of suppliers and minimised the need for manual input, provides transparency as all the history is included with the bill and allow for Approvers to view the invoices for their area so provides confidentiality and saves them time.
Staff skills and time can be used more productively on more than inputting invoices.
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
Response from Lightyear
Many thanks for the review. Great to hear that you are finding the data-extraction to be more accurate and quicker than your previous supplier.
- Industry: Construction
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Time Saver
Charlie has been great and customer service has been very quick in replying and solving questions. Approval processing is working well, overall happy.
Pros
The Manager function has worked well for us as we have offices in different locations which has made the approval of invoices more efficient.
Easy to see where the approval process is up to.
Exporting invoices to our accounting system is great.
Also like the audit trail feature.
Cons
We haven't used the PO system yet but looking forward to the enhancements that will suit the way we use them. Yes they have listened to us and adding options to suit our business.
Top Lightyear Alternatives
- Industry: Education Management
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Great solution for a medium sized enterprise
Lightyear has proved to be a great value entry point to accounts payable automation. The team at Lightyear were really helpful getting us setup and used to the system and ongoing support for new supplier setups and invoice layouts is very prompt. The system continues to be developed and has some limitations, but for the money you pay, it is a great value product.
Pros
The system is simple and handles the basics well such as invoice coding and linear approval workflows.Bank account detail changes, duplicate invoice flagging and statement reconciliation are also very clear and useful.The support team both for implementation and ongoing support are responsive and effective.
Cons
The approval workflow for invoices is at the individual supplier level so you can't create an approval chain for a department and attach a group of suppliers to that department. Each supplier is configured individually.
Alternatives Considered
SAP ConcurReasons for Switching to Lightyear
Value for moneySpeed and ease of implementation- Industry: Hospitality
- Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Efficient, intelligent and easy-to-use
The team at Lightyear are hospitality-experienced and so empathise and comprehend my business and the daily problems I need to resolve. They are fantastic to deal with - grounded, patient (I test them on this), understanding and always willing to help and train. They are more than a supplier - they are a true business partner, with the best interests of my business as their main concern (even if it means cutting themselves short a few dollars here and there). A great company to have on your side, and an inspirational team to work with.
Pros
Once set up, it's a one-stop-shop for invoice receipt, accounts payable and receivable reconciliation, cost management, and business information. It is intuitive and simple to use, extremely cost-effective and takes out some of the most mundane and laborious tasks so I have more time to work on improving my business and keeping front-of-house. I could not recommend it more highly.
Cons
There's nothing I dislike about this product - I am overly happy to have it as part of my suite of tools.
Response from Lightyear
Many thanks for the review. We're glad to hear that you are taking full advantage of Lightyear.
- Industry: Accounting
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Accounts Payable Perfection
Extremely happy.
Pros
Lightyear allows us to easily manage the accounts payable process across our entire client base. It's unqiue mapping extraction process as well as logical flow of information, clean user interface, filing cabinet, approval process, inventory and duplicate recognition make it in my opinion the best accounts payable solution on the market. There support team is second to none.
Cons
Integrations with more POS programs or even job management programs would only increase Lightyears potential.
Reasons for Switching to Lightyear
The additional functionality and accuracy of the extraction process/technology.Response from Lightyear
Many thanks for taking the time to leave us a review. It is great to hear that you are taking full advantage of LIghtyear. We are always working on new integrations and more are coming soon.
- Industry: Education Management
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Game Changer
Simplifying the approval process
Pros
Having data extraction & approval within one system is a game changer for us.
The approval process is simple to use once you spend the time to set it up.
The Keyword feature works really well when working with multiple locations.
The mobile phone app is easy to use and easy to switch between companies.
Cons
No ability on the mobile app to add a note to the receipt/invoice and no feature for multiple page or long receipts / invoices.
- Industry: Food & Beverages
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
A great product that's getting even better with every update
Pros
First of all, Lightyear is a standalone application that you can, but don't have to integrate with your accounting software. Second of all, strightaway you know the costs of adding it to your business. The price list is on their website and it's fair.
The setup did require some thinking about workflows and user experience, so I took my time there.
But once the suppliers and maps are set up and automation rules kick in, the whole AP process becomes much less painful. I almost enjoy it now ;). The most important features like reading the invoices, accurately mapping them, and assigning them to correct approvers work very well. It saves time, effort and annoyances. The Lightear support team is a very helpful and friendly bunch. I even did a small survey among colleagues and asked what they thought of Lightyear. No surprise - everyone likes it. I highly recommend this product!
Cons
No option to add multiple attachments to invoice at once.
Alternatives Considered
Adobe Acrobat SignReasons for Switching to Lightyear
It's standalone and doesn't need costly integrations with accounting software or involving IT support.- Industry: Farming
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Amazing tool to process accounts payables
Pros
Great value for money, time saving, user friendly, outstanding customer service, provides everything you need to process creditors invoices
Cons
I have never had a bad experience with Lightyear. Whenever something doesn't work (which barely happens), their team is always very responsive and the problem gets solved super quickly
Alternatives Considered
HubdocReasons for Switching to Lightyear
Much better product than the other alternatives- Industry: Hospitality
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Easy to implement and works very well
Has helped modernize the way our company processes and stores invoices, hard to envisage the company going back to the way it was before.
Pros
Easy to use and has vastly improved the time to process our payments while providing significantly more oversight for our executive team.
Cons
Integration with existing procedures was very easy but would require the company's accounts/purchasing team to be hands on during the process.
Alternatives Considered
MediusReasons for Switching to Lightyear
Cost and Lightyear took our queries more seriously and responded with much more urgency.- Industry: Nonprofit Organisation Management
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Lightyear - great product, easy implementation, great value and top notch customer support!
AP Automation was long overdue within our organisation. Lightyear ticks the boxes for us in terms of automation and improving our processes, particularly in an international organisation working in multiple timezones.
Would thoroughly recommend you are least trial the product - no cost if you don't like, but I'll be surprised if you turn back!
Pros
Not much not to like! The fact that you can have a month's free trial to test it out and set everything up is brilliant. It meant we could trial the product at no cost (including excellent support from [SENSITIVE CONTENT] ). Although there was paid implementation assistance (cheap!) available I was able to set the whole thing up without having to resort to that (the customer support team is on hand 24/7 to help with any issues).
The product is not that mature - which could be seen as a downside. However, the Lightyear team is so responsive that it doesn't actually come across that way. Most of the niggles that I had at the beginning (just over 6 months ago) have already been resolved through the regular product updates, and I have confidence that the remainder will be resolved in due course.
The product is very easy to set-up and use (as evidenced by being self-implemented). We have implemented in four locations, and once you understand how things work, it only really takes a couple of hours of setup to do each new location.
Cons
Given the nature of the rapid development of the product, there is still some work to be done to rationalise all the features (e.g. 'Edit Bill' permissions were add retrospectively to the 'Task Approver' role, so they don't integrate in a completely cohesive manner with the interface). However, I understand that the team are proactively working on that aspect.
- Industry: Hospitality
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Accounts Payable Game Changer
Kudos to Team Lightyear for delivering a full range Accounts Payable solution in a simple and effective package. After researching a number of similar products, we implemented Lightyear over a year ago and it has transformed the way we manage our suppliers across all business divisions. Automation ensures integrity of data flows and authorisations through all our core systems and provides a comprehensive audit trail for every document - from when it was received from the supplier, across every interaction and through to our accounting system. Data processing time has halved and all users can source information directly through the simple online document storage feature.
Implementation was seamless and the team managed to deliver the entire product remotely and in record time. Support is strong and fast, and I love seeing continued enhancements and new features in the software. I recommend Lighyear to my peers often - a great solution for any business.
Pros
Simplicity - easy for non-finance users to navigate
Clear audit trail on all interactions with documentation
Very cost efficient
Cons
I would like to see a bounced email feature when a supplier directs their invoice to a slightly incorrect email address - as far as I can see, if the Lightyear email address is incorrect, neither the supplier or the receiving entity is aware
- Industry: Hospitality
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Wonderful Product
Time saving and accurate. The archive tab is a wonderful tool for our department managers to look up invoices without interrupting the Accounts team. The inventory function is great as well. I was sceptical when first introduced to Lightyear after returning from Long Service Leave but now I just couldn't imagine working without it. Being cloud based it is easy to work from home.
Pros
We never lose an invoice. Even if we accidently delete an invoice we can return it for processing. We have reached our goal of being almost paper free. The processing, approval, review and signing off tabs are wonderful and provides us with a simple system that provides accountability from our department managers. So easy to use and saves so much time.
Cons
A very small number of our supplier invoices can't be mapped but with the overall benefits of this system it is just a minimal issue.
- Industry: Nonprofit Organisation Management
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Must have software
I found Lightyear easy to use and value for money. I can't recommend it enough!
Pros
The Lightyear software is very affordable, user friendly and easy to implement. It does have many functionalities and the integration to NetSuite ERP system is very robust. The accuracy of data extraction is impeccable. What I valued most though is the customer service. The Lightyear team has made the implementation and ongoing operation of the software a breeze.
Cons
The Lightyear software is feature packed. However, more could be done in the space of multi level coding and exporting capabilities.
Alternatives Considered
PaperSaveReasons for Switching to Lightyear
Cost.- Industry: Security & Investigations
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Lightyear Feedback
Wonderful team and great people always extent their support in need. This took made life more easy and faster, keep track of all the transactions and less maintenance. Cost effective and over all this is great tool that helping organisation to minimize cost with less effort and good record keeping tracker and processing.
Pros
User friendly and easy use and no effort required to understand every thing is self explanatory.
Cons
No such other tool available in the market that is near close to the lightyear performance.
- Industry: Civil Engineering
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Lightyear saves you time for sure
We've been using Lightyear since it started. We find it very helpful and easy to use. It keeps a tax record of all our supplier bills in one location and sends a copy of the bill to Xero so that the process owner can see it when reviewing it to approve for payment.
Pros
Having Lightyear enables us to do in minutes what used to take hours of manual data entry to enter suppliers bills into our accounting software.
Cons
I find it annoying that I have to set up a supplier in Xero, raise a test bill, then pull that back into Lightyear to set up a supplier in Lightyear.
Response from Lightyear
Hello Kathleen, Many thanks for your excellent review. There should be an easier way to setup new suppliers between us and Xero. One of the team will reach out.
- Industry: Logistics & Supply Chain
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
AP Automation tool ideally suited for SMEs
Implementing Lightyear was tricky initially as the software did not have existing integration with SAP. That's something we had to figure out however the team at Lightyear gave us ample opportunity and support even during the trial phase. Would like to specially mention about [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN], our account manager. She is a customer service champ.
Pros
The product gives you good value for money. Its easy to use and implement with excellent customer support.
Cons
Still early days for the software when it comes to integrating with SAP. Would have liked an API that integrates with SAP too. Best works for Xero, MYOB and other finance platforms.
Reasons for Switching to Lightyear
Better value for money.Response from Lightyear
Many thanks for the review Ankur. We are always developing the platform but we will pass on your feedback to the development team. Great to hear the support team have been able to get everything sorted for you in the meantime.
- Industry: Hospitality
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Long time user
Overall I am pleased with lightyear and has made life easier. It's always a work in progress but with the right management and support it works really well.
Pros
Lightyear has given me the ability to stop having to manually enter invoices. which for us was becoming out of hand as the company grew. There was some teething issues but the support is excellent. The team are very responsive and always work on fixing any issues we run into.
Cons
The maps don't alwasy work and you have to fund multiple maps for a supplier.
- Industry: Education Management
- Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Extremely Capable & Easy to Use
We receive between 2,000 to 3,000 invoices per month. Lightyear facilitates auto receiving and forwarding to the persons responsible for approving the invoices. It provides a logical and easy to understand workflow and has integration to our Xero aacounting software. Lightyear provided excellent training and their support is 100%
Pros
Quick to Learn
Excellent functionality
Fast and knowledgeable support
Cons
None as most of the things I would like are coming in soon to be released new version
Response from Lightyear
Hi Greg, many thanks for the feedback and delighted we are able to help your team improve their AP processes!
- Industry: Automotive
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
user friendly
Pros
The product is easy to use because you can navigate through what you need to in order to accomplish your daily tasks. My administrators are well informed and can help me with any issue that arises.
Cons
The only issues I have typically arise from the integration of Toyota with the software. Toyota has an issue then I am unable to complete certain tasks inside Lightyear.
- Industry: Transportation/Trucking/Railroad
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Moving to Lightyear was the best decision we ever made
The team at Lightyear are exceptional. Everyone from the onboarding team through to the support team were and are amazing to deal. I cannot speak highly enough of the services they provide, particularly [SENSITIVE CONTENT] who provided onboarding, training and facilitated the best implementation process I have ever experienced.
Pros
Lightyear has completely transformed the whole business and made life so incredibly easy. From the transparency of data extraction and approval process through to the electronic filing this system is truly brilliant. I cannot recommend it enough.
Cons
I really can't think of any cons. If there is a feature that is missing, the development team appears to take on board suggestions to incorporate it into the next update and they appear to regularly update and upgrade features.
- Industry: Farming
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Lightyear is fantastic
We love Lightyear. It has made the way we operate so much easier. Team members across NZ & Australia can access invoices to review, code and sign off/approve invoices for payment.
Pros
Saves so much time, easy to use, friendly and knowledgeable staff.
Easy to train our Farm Managers to use to code invoices.
Cons
Can't think of anything. We have been really pleased with Lightyear.
Response from Lightyear
Many thanks for taking the time to complete a review on Lightyear. Glad to hear you are saving time with coding your invoices.
- Industry: Construction
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Lightyear changed our life!!
Our previous PI approval process was time consuming and mostly manual, we had to process each invoice several times to update various systems, with Lightyear we have reduced that process to several clicks, plus approvals are now much quicker and we now never lose invoices!
The ability to price check regular suppliers invoices automatically has also helped reduce costs by finding suppler mistakes we would have missed previously.
Pros
The best bit of Lightyear is the cloud archive of all our purchase invoices, we no longer have to keep paper archives saving us space and time.
We also like the Bill Task function which allows us to send an approval request to a specific person who may only approve a few invoices.
Cons
We would like an integration into simPRO which we use to raise orders, this will reduce the administration involved in managing our PO’s and PI’s.
Response from Lightyear
Many thanks for your review and feedback. We have some exciting developments regarding PO's in the future. We are always exploring new integrations and I will pass this back to the product team.
- Industry: Real Estate
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Prompt response
the software every now and then gets updated with new feature - but most importantly the customer service is brilliant. They always respond and resolve any queries so promptly that it doesnt disrupt your workflow.
Pros
It is very user friendly
option of mapping is brilliant
Cons
There should be more features on the processing tab to save the invoice there.
Should have more option to customize mapping
- Industry: Hospitality
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Happy would recommend
highly recommend saves time money and accuracy
Pros
the ease of processing prevention of invoice duplication importing to software with full description details
Cons
there not really anything I did not like