Salon / Spa / Beauty Parlour

For a salon, barber shop, beauty parlour or spa. Clients book a slot or walk in, one or more treatments are done — often by different people on the same visit — and it is rung up at the counter. Products sell over the same till.

Set up before your first client

Do these in order. The owner does all of them.

1. Pick what you run Settings > Salon: Appointment Book (off leaves a walk-in-only counter), Book by Stylist, Reminders & No-shows, Stylist per Bill Line and Academy.
2. Set the day on the same page: opening and closing hours, the slot length and default duration, and the grace minutes before a late client can be marked a no-show.
3. Add treatments and products Setup > Treatments & Products, each with its price and, for a treatment, its usual duration so the day book lays out properly.
4. Add your team as staff under Setup > People > Therapists, filed under their role (Stylist, Beautician, Therapist, Receptionist, Salon Manager), so a booking and a bill line can name who did it.
5. Add cancellation reasons under Setup > Cancellation Reasons (with the Appointment Book on).
6. Give each person a login and pick their seat (see Who signs in).
7. Run one test visit: book an appointment, bill it at the counter, print the slip. Cancel the test booking afterwards.

How the work flows

Each step says who does it and what prints. The booking steps need the Appointment Book on; a walk-in-only shop goes straight to the counter.

The whole journey on one page:

flowchart TD
    A[New Appointment
client · treatments · time · stylist] --> B[(Booked)]
    W[Walk-in] --> C
    B --> C[Day Book: the day laid out
a column per stylist]
    C --> D[Client arrives · in the chair]
    D --> E[Each treatment marked done
or skipped]
    E --> F[Counter Sale
the treatments done, priced]
    F --> G[Products added if any
shampoo · colour · retail]
    G --> H[(Paid · one bill)]
    C --> N[Did not turn up
recorded as a no-show]

Who signs in

Give every person their own login. Adding a user in a salon or spa asks what the person does first. That choice decides the screen they open on, their phone’s bottom bar and the switches they start with. Any switch can be changed afterwards.

1. Open the user form Settings > Users > Add.
2. Pick the seat in Does and link their staff record in Contact. The role on their staff record suggests the seat: a Stylist, Beautician or Therapist gets Stylist / Therapist, a Receptionist gets Front Desk and a Salon Manager gets Salon Manager. Helper / Housekeeping is left for you to pick.
3. Set the login: user name and password (email on a cloud business).
4. Review the switches under May do, add or remove any, and save.

The visit is settled with a normal sale, so the Front Desk and the Salon Manager start with the counter rights too, and are also offered the price and discount switch; the Stylist seat is not. Mark No-show & Cancel is offered with the Appointment Book on, and Reassign Stylist with Stylist per Bill Line on. Academy screens follow the Gym card’s switches: Enrol & Renew for New Student and Enrol Student, View Revenue for Course Dues. See Users, Roles & Permissions.

Where it is in the app

A salon opens on its own home screen. The Owner opens on the Dashboard; the Front Desk, the Salon Manager and a Stylist open on the Day Book (a Stylist on Appointments while Book by Stylist hides the whole day from them). A shop that runs no appointments opens every seat on the Dashboard. Each menu shows only what this login is granted and this business has switched on; a menu left empty does not appear.

On a computer: the menu bar

Across the top: the Dashboard and the screen this seat opens on (taken out of its own menu so it sits first), then one menu per area. New Appointment sits in a New submenu at the top of the first menu. Settings and the utilities are on Tools.

On a phone or tablet: the side menu and the bottom bar

The side menu lists the same menus in the same order as the menu bar, so a desk that books on a laptop and on a tablet learns one set of menus. The bottom bar depends on the seat.

Screens

Dashboard

Who is next in the chair, how much of the day is still to come, what has finished, who did not turn up (and what share of the day that is), and what was quoted today.

Day Book

Today laid out by time, with a column per stylist when Book by Stylist is on. This is the screen the front desk lives on: it shows the gaps, so the next caller can be given one. Bill at Counter sends a finished visit to the till.

Appointments

The whole book — past and future — filterable by status. From a row you can reschedule, cancel with a reason, mark a no-show, print the slip, or send the client straight to the counter.

Reminders

Two queues, when Reminders & No-shows is on: appointments starting inside the window nobody has been reminded of, and no-shows from the last week still owed a follow-up. Send one row or the whole list; a client leaves the queue only when the message actually went, so a failed send does not read as a job done.

Counter

The ordinary counter sale. Treatments are items like any other, so they price, tax and discount the same way, and products sell on the same bill. With Stylist per Bill Line on, each line carries who did it.

Treatments & Products

One master for both. A treatment carries its usual duration, which is what lets the day book lay the diary out properly.

Directory

Under Setup > People. Clients are ordinary party ledgers, so a regular keeps their visit history and any balance. See Contacts.

Academy

With Academy on (it needs Memberships), the salon can teach courses — bridal make-up, hair, nails, spa therapy. Students enrol on a course, attend its batches, pay in parts and get a certificate of completion.

Packages and memberships

A prepaid card — 10 facials — or a monthly unlimited is the Gym / Membership feature, switched on under Settings, and shows as Cards on the Sales menu. It is the same machinery a fitness club uses: a term or a block of sessions, with its own expiry and its own redemption at the counter, rather than a second half-built version inside the salon. See Gym.

Who did the work

flowchart TD
    A[One visit] --> B[Cut · stylist A]
    A --> C[Facial · stylist B]
    B --> D[One bill, two lines
each crediting its own person]
    C --> D
    D --> E[Stylist-wise report]
    D --> F[Commission or incentive
if you pay one]

Settings

A new salon starts lean: the halves below are switched on as you need them, so a two-chair barber is not handed a day grid and a reminder queue on day one.

The same page holds The Day (opening and closing hours, slot and default length), Late & Missed (the grace before the No-show button appears; the app never marks a client absent on its own), Allow Two in One Chair, and the reminder lead time.

What each person may do

Four switches on the Salon card, on top of the ordinary counter ones. The seat picked in Does ticks a starting set (see Who signs in); after that, what a person may do is exactly what is ticked. The visit itself is settled with a normal sale, so a front-desk login needs these and the counter rights.

Reports

Salon Reports: Appointment Register · Stylist Productivity (off the service LINES, so a two-stylist visit is credited honestly) · Service Mix · No-Shows & Cancellations by reason · Chair Utilisation · Client Retention (which doubles as the win-back call sheet) · Package Redemptions.
Business Reports: Day Book, Expenses, Income, Profit & Loss, GST. See Reports.