Salon100X software in practice: a salon's working day, feature by feature

The page that used to live at this address was a case study with three named salons and results nobody could check. None of it was real, and it came down with the old site. We publish a result only when it carries a named client, a date range and what was measured, and when we have one it will be on the work page.

What we can show you instead is what the software does, hour by hour, on an ordinary Saturday in a salon we have made up for the purpose: five stylists, two sites. Every feature below is live in Salon100X at the date on this post.

8am: opening the diary

The manager opens the day view. Each stylist is a row, the time line moves across as the morning goes on, and a search for a client's name highlights their booking. Two blocks are already in place: a break for each stylist at lunch, and a "do not book" block on one column for a training session at four.

The month view is open on the second screen for planning next week's holiday cover. A stylist who is away has her working hours removed for the week, so the booking page offers nothing in her column.

9.30am: the client who booked at midnight

The first arrival of the day booked at ten past midnight from her phone: location, service, stylist, date and time, confirm. Six steps and no login. Her confirmation email went to her, to the stylist and to the owner at the same time. Because her email address was new, a client record was created for her automatically, with a welcome email carrying her portal login.

Reception checks her in with a note about her colour history, taken from the consultation form she completed on her phone the evening before through the signed link the salon sent.

10.15am: a question for the copilot

The senior stylist wants to know how the morning is going and types "how is today looking?" into the Front Desk Copilot. It replies with today's net revenue so far, bookings, average ticket, utilisation, retail attach and the no-show count. Then she types "move Daniel's 2pm to 3.30pm". The copilot shows the change with Yes and No buttons. She taps Yes, the diary updates, and the change is written to the activity log with her name on it.

Later, a client asks for her next booking through the chat bubble on the salon's booking page. She dictates her request rather than typing it, the assistant reads back the slot, she says yes, and it gives her an 8-character reference.

12.40pm: a cancellation

A client cancels tomorrow's 3pm balayage from her portal, outside the 24-hour notice window, so the portal allows it. The waitlist is switched on, so the first waitlisted client who wanted that service with that stylist gets a text offer through the salon's Twilio account, with accept and decline links. She accepts in one tap and the appointment is booked. No confirmation email goes out for a waitlist booking, which is a gap the manager knows about, so reception sends a quick message.

3pm: checkout and the next visit

The midnight booker is finished. Reception sends her a Stripe payment link by email for the service and the two retail products she picked up. Her gift card balance from Christmas comes off first, then her loyalty points, and she pays the rest on her phone before she has left the chair. The payment appears on the transactions page.

Before she leaves, reception books her next visit in seven weeks and it lands in her inbox. Four hours later the software sends her a review request by SMS. She gives five stars, and the request sends her on to the salon's Google page to write it.

6.30pm: the day in one screen

The manager opens the "Today at a glance" dashboard: net revenue, bookings, average ticket, utilisation, retail attach, no-shows, top services and top staff. One appointment was never checked in and has been marked as a no-show automatically. The owner, at home, opens the owner dashboard and sees the same day across both of her locations.

Friday: commission and the accountant

At the end of the week the manager opens commission statements. Each stylist can already see their own. The payroll period is built from the ledger, exported as a Xero file with a reconciliation check to the penny, and forwarded to the accountant. Wages and deductions are the accountant's job; the commission figures are the file's.

Month end: the numbers that matter

On the first Monday of the month the owner's scheduled reports arrive by email: sales by location, sales by staff, new versus returning clients, rebook rate, no-show rate and the demand heatmap. She reads them on her phone. The rebook rate is the one she watches, because it tells her which stylists are building a book and which are filling one.

What is missing from this day, on purpose

• Nobody received an appointment reminder, because the software does not send them.
• Nobody paid a deposit or a no-show fee, because the software does not take them.
• Nobody tapped a card on a terminal supplied by the software. The salon kept its own terminal for in-person payments.
• Nobody imported a client list. The existing clients were entered by the team before launch.
• Nobody opened a native app. Everything ran in the browser on a phone, a tablet and a desktop.

We list these because the day above is only useful if it is complete. The full list of what is and is not in the product is on the compare page.

What a real case study will contain

When we publish one, it will name the salon, give the date range, and say what was measured and how: bookings in the diary, not clicks; rebook rate from the report, not a survey. The evidence will be on file. Until then, the best case study is your own salon running the software for the first three months, which are free and need no card at signup. Book a demo and we will run the day above on a diary that looks like yours.