Salon POS and checkout software
Salon point of sale
In short
A salon POS takes payment for appointments, walk-ins and retail in one sale, and connects it to the rest of the salon: the deposit already paid at booking, the gift card being redeemed, the membership that changes the price, and the stylist whose commission depends on it. A general retail POS handles the payment correctly and knows none of that.
Before you buy
What to look for
The sale has to know about the appointment
If checkout starts from an empty basket, somebody re-types what was booked, and the deposit taken online three weeks ago has to be remembered and subtracted by hand. That is the most common single source of an evening that will not balance.
Split payments are normal, not an edge case
Half on a gift card and the rest on a card. A deposit, a membership discount and cash. Check the POS handles more than one tender on a sale, because a salon that cannot will end up recording the sale wrongly to get the client out of the door.
Commission is a checkout question
Commission is worked out from what was actually taken, per stylist, after discounts and with tax handled consistently. If it is calculated in a spreadsheet from a report, it will diverge from the POS the first time somebody applies a discount at the counter.
Ask what the card rate actually is
Processing rates in this category range widely, and the difference across a salon’s annual card volume is usually larger than the difference in subscription price. Compare the percentage and the per-transaction fee together, in person and online, and ask whose account the money settles to.
In BeautifyOS
What we built
- Checkout
- Point of sale for appointments, walk-ins and retail: card and cash, discounts, gift cards, deposits already paid, and a receipt, with the day reconciled at close.
- Payments
- Card payments through Stripe, taken online at booking as a deposit or in the salon at checkout, settled to the salon’s own account.
- Gift cards
- Gift cards sold online or at the counter, for an amount or for a named service, delivered on a chosen date, redeemed at checkout, and carried as a liability in the accounts until they are.
- Memberships
- Recurring plans a client pays for monthly, with whatever the plan includes applied automatically at checkout.
- Packages
- A course of treatments bought once and drawn down visit by visit, with the remaining balance visible to the salon and to the client.
- Retail
- Products sold alongside services at the same checkout, counted and reported in the same day’s revenue.
- Team
- Staff hours, time off, what each person is allowed to see, their own app, and their commission worked out from what they actually took.
- Reporting
- What the salon earned, per service, per stylist and per day, with commission and tax split out, and the books closed at month end.
Questions
Answered
- What is a salon POS?
- The checkout a salon takes payment at: appointments, walk-ins and retail in one sale, with deposits, gift cards and memberships applied, and the day reconciled at close.
- Does it take card payments?
- Yes, through Stripe — online as a deposit at booking, or in the salon at checkout, settling to the salon’s own account.
- Can a client pay part on a gift card and part on a card?
- Yes. A sale can be settled with more than one tender.
- Does it handle stock?
- Retail products are sold and counted alongside services. Purchase orders and reordering are not built.
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