Use case · salon and studio
Salon: retail on the shelf, backbar behind the chair
A salon carries two inventories that behave differently. Retail products sit on a shelf with a price and leave through the till. Backbar products are used by staff in small amounts and never see a customer. Counting both the same way is how the backbar disappears.
Separate the two, even in one app
The simplest structure is two locations: Shop floor and Backbar. Starter includes one location, so a small salon can instead use a tag or a supplier field to separate them, or move to Pro for three locations. Whichever you choose, make the rule explicit: a retail unit is sold, a backbar unit is used.
Retail stock is counted like any retail shelf: fast movers weekly, the rest monthly, blind. Backbar is counted less often but recorded more often, because usage happens between counts. That is what adjustments are for.
Record backbar usage as it happens
When a colour, developer or treatment is used, record it as an adjustment with a reason — used in service. It takes a few seconds on the phone, and it turns the monthly count from an investigation into a confirmation. A tube that vanished without a record is indistinguishable from a tube that was miscounted.
Not every gram needs recording. Choose the handful of products that matter by cost or by how often they run out: the professional colour line, the developer, the treatment that costs more than the service markup. Record those; let the rest be caught by the count.
Receive deliveries without a stockroom
Salon deliveries are small and frequent, and they often arrive during appointments. Receive them where they are put away: scan the barcode if the product has one, search the name if not, enter the quantity, choose Receive. The movement records the time and the person. If the reception desk has no signal, the receipt queues and syncs later.
Print a label for products that do not have a usable barcode. The app prints a Code128 sheet from the phone, up to 50 copies at a time.
Count monthly, review honestly
A monthly count of the backbar and the retail shelf is realistic for a salon. Count blind: the expected number is hidden until the review. Leave a line empty if you cannot reach it; it keeps its stock and the review says so. The review shows the variance per product in its own unit, which is the number that tells you whether the difference is a few grams or a whole bottle.
Submit once. If the connection drops and you retry, the count's own id makes the retry a duplicate instead of a second stocktake.
Set minimums that fit the supplier
Salon suppliers often have order minimums or free-delivery thresholds. Set the item minimum to cover the gap between orders, and use the reorder list to build the order: it groups by supplier and suggests twice the minimum minus what is on hand. Edit the quantities to hit the threshold rather than ordering exactly what the formula says.
The reorder-point calculator helps for slow-moving retail lines where the lead time is longer than the shelf life of a trend.
Staff and accountability without surveillance
Staff can count and record stock; they cannot change prices or manage the shop. That is enforced on the server, not just hidden on the screen. The ledger names the actor, device and time for each movement, which is useful when a product is short and nobody remembers using it — not to police people, but to answer a question with a fact.
Invite the team by email. An existing account joins immediately; a new address gets a sign-up email. Starter includes three users; Pro includes ten.
What this product does not do
No appointment or client records, no commission calculations, no till integration, and no automatic deduction when a service is sold. It is an inventory ledger, not a salon management system. If you need client history and bookings in the same place, keep your salon software and use Mobile Inventory for the stock.
A first month
- Import the retail and backbar catalogue, or add the top thirty products by hand.
- Print labels for the products without a usable barcode.
- Record backbar usage daily for the expensive lines.
- Count both locations blind at the end of the month and read the review.
- Set minimums on the products that run out; the reorder list takes over.