Salons and barbers: appointments, walk-ins and commissions

A salon runs on two things the general system does not cover on its own: who is booked with whom, and who earned what.

The diary and the queue

1. Define your service menu — each service with its price and how long it takes.
2. Book appointments against a stylist and a time. The diary shows the day per stylist.
3. Walk-ins go into a live queue rather than being forced into the diary.
4. Reminders go out before the appointment, which is the cheapest way to cut no-shows.

Letting clients book themselves

A public booking page shows your services and your real availability, on your own web address. Bookings made there land in the same diary and are marked as having come from online, so you can see how much of your business is booking itself.

Commission

Commission is tracked per stylist per service, so what each person has earned is a figure rather than a weekly argument, and it feeds through to payroll. Retail products sold alongside services run through the same till and stock as everything else.