The flooring-specific Lightspeed alternative
Lightspeed wasn't built for flooring. It was built for apparel, bike shops, jewelry stores, restaurants, golf courses, and dozens of other verticals — which means flooring retailers consistently hit the same walls: no real quote-to-install workflow, no work orders for installers, no job costing tied to a project, no contractor pricing as a first-class concept. The result is the workarounds you already know — spreadsheets for jobs in flight, a whiteboard for the install schedule, PDFs nobody signs, an external payment gateway. Service Buddy is built for one industry, on purpose.
What changes when you move from Lightspeed to Service Buddy
A workflow built for how flooring actually sells.
Flooring isn't a ring-up — it's quote, measure, sign, deposit, order, schedule, install, invoice, paid. Service Buddy is built around the full job lifecycle. Digital proposals, work orders, install scheduling, job costing, and final invoicing all share the same record.
Digital proposals customers sign and pay in one click.
Service Buddy's digital proposals are the front door of the platform: clean, branded, designed for mobile, with sign-and-pay built in. Apple Pay, ACH, card on file — all native. Our customers report 90% faster approvals.
Real inventory, real job costing, real margins.
Flooring inventory is rolls, pieces, dye lots, custom orders, vendor lead times, and material allocated to specific jobs. Service Buddy handles all of it natively: real-time stock tracking, QR labels, vendor and PO management, and job costing that shows you margin on every job as it runs.
A platform built for your industry, not every industry.
Every flooring-specific feature is, by definition, going to be deprioritized on a platform that also serves apparel and golf courses. Service Buddy serves flooring, carpet, and rug retailers — that's all we do. Every feature, every release, every conversation with our team is shaped by that focus.
Service Buddy vs Lightspeed
A direct comparison of capabilities flooring retailers care about.
| Capability | Service Buddy | Lightspeed |
|---|---|---|
| Built for flooring, carpet, and rug retailers | ✓ | × Generic retail |
| Quote-to-install job workflow | ✓ | × |
| Digital proposals with one-click sign + pay | ✓ | × |
| Work orders for installers | ✓ | × |
| Job costing tied to projects | ✓ | × |
| Contractor pricing as a first-class concept | ✓ | × |
| Native payments (cards, ACH, Apple Pay) | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI built into the platform | ✓ | Limited |
| Two-way QuickBooks Online sync | ✓ | Via integration |
| Hands-on, founder-led onboarding | ✓ | × |
Onboarding that's hands-on, founder-led, and built around your success.
Lightspeed is a publicly traded platform serving hundreds of thousands of merchants worldwide. Service Buddy is a family-owned company serving flooring retailers. Our founders are personally involved in onboarding, our entire team is wired around your success, and you talk to people who know your store by name — not a global support queue.
Founder-led
Our founders sit in on implementations. You're talking to the people who built the product.
Hands-on
We build your customer list, product catalog, pricing, and workflows with you.
Live in 5 days
With you weekly through the first 30. Checking in on the metrics that matter through the first quarter.
Real partnership
Family-owned. You call, we pick up — not a ticket in a global queue.
What we bring with us from Lightspeed
Our team handles the export and the import — and translates retail concepts into flooring concepts so your data fits the new workflow.
- ✓Customers— full CRM records, contacts, notes, and tags.
- ✓Products and pricing— SKUs, vendor cost, retail pricing, and categories.
- ✓Pricing tiers— contractor, designer, and other custom pricing levels for trade and key customers.
- ✓Vendors— supplier records and purchase history.
- ✓Open quotes, work orders, and jobs— so nothing in flight gets dropped.
- ✓Sales history— including per-customer purchase history, for reporting continuity.
- ✓Photos and documents— attached to customers and jobs.
Sales, cleaning, repairs — finally all in one place. Our team's more organized than ever. Service Buddy gets how flooring works.
Kathryn, Persian Rug Gallery · Chris Gibson, Parker Carpet
How the move from Lightspeed works
You get a person from day one
A dedicated implementation manager with experience moving stores off general-purpose POS systems — and direct access to our founders.
We migrate your data, with you
We handle the export from Lightspeed and the import into Service Buddy — translating retail concepts into the quote-to-install workflow flooring stores use.
Live in 5 days
Hands-on training before go-live. Your implementation manager and our founders stay with you through the first weeks and the first quarter.
Lightspeed to Service Buddy — frequently asked questions
How long does it take to switch from Lightspeed to Service Buddy?
Most flooring retailers are fully live on Service Buddy in 5 days. Onboarding takes about 3 hours of your team's time. Our team handles the data migration and translates retail concepts into the flooring workflow.
What data comes over from Lightspeed?
Customers (CRM records, contacts, notes, tags), products and pricing (SKUs, vendor cost, retail pricing, categories), pricing tiers (contractor, designer, custom), vendors and purchase history, open quotes / work orders / jobs, sales history including per-customer purchase history, and photos and documents attached to records all come across.
Why isn't Lightspeed good for flooring stores?
Lightspeed was built for apparel, restaurants, golf, and dozens of other verticals. It doesn't have a real quote-to-install workflow, work orders for installers, job costing tied to a project, or contractor pricing as a first-class concept.
Is Service Buddy actually built for flooring?
Yes. Service Buddy is built only for flooring, carpet, and rug retailers — that's all we do. We work with 100+ flooring stores including Dover Rug, Parker Carpet, and Magarian Rug.
Does Service Buddy integrate with QuickBooks Online?
Yes. Service Buddy has a rock-solid two-way QuickBooks Online integration. Invoices, payments, customers, items, and tax codes flow cleanly.
See Service Buddy in action with a live demo
Everything you need to run your flooring business, Service Buddy is your all-in-one management platform.