Salons & Spas
Services pay the bills. Retail is where the extra margin lives. If you're not tracking both separately, you don't know which one is actually making you money.
Two Businesses in One Chair
A client sits down for a color and cut. That’s service revenue. On the way out, she buys shampoo and a styling product. That’s retail. Both ring up at the same register. Both hit the same bank account. But they’re different businesses with different margins, and most salons lump them together.
Services are labor-intensive. You pay your stylist a commission or hourly rate. The margin is what’s left after you’ve paid the talent. Retail is product markup. You buy a bottle for $12, sell it for $28. The margin should be better, but only if you’re actually tracking it.
Who This Is For
Who This Is For
Hair salons, barbershops, day spas, nail salons, estheticians, massage practices, med spas. Anyone selling services and products from the same location.
The Blind Spot
The Blind Spot
Revenue looks good. But is it the services making money or the retail? If one is carrying the other, you need to know which.
The Retail Margin You're Not Seeing
Retail should be pure margin. No labor cost, just product in and product out. But most salons don’t know their actual retail numbers. Product walks out the door untallied. Staff discounts never get recorded. A bottle gets used as a tester and disappears from inventory.
Meanwhile, you’re reordering based on what feels low instead of what actually sold. Some products sit on the shelf for a year. Others sell out and you didn’t notice. Without tracking, retail turns from a profit center into a guessing game.
Retail Revenue
Retail Revenue
Separated from service revenue so you can see the real margin. What sold, what’s sitting, what’s worth restocking.
Inventory Tracking
Inventory Tracking
What’s on the shelf, what’s been sold, what’s gone missing. Catch shrinkage before it eats your margin.
Product Cost: The Hidden Leak
The color you put on a client’s head isn’t retail. That’s cost of goods sold. Same with toner, developer, wax, massage oil, nail polish. It’s product you bought that gets used up delivering a service. If you’re not tracking it, you’re overstating your service margins.
A color service billed at $150 feels profitable. But if the product cost was $35 and you’re paying $60 in commission, you made $55. Miss the product cost in your books and you think you made $90. That’s the kind of math that makes busy months feel broke.
Service Product Cost
Service Product Cost
Color, chemicals, supplies tracked as cost of goods sold. Your service margin reflects reality, not a fantasy where product is free.
True Service Margin
True Service Margin
Revenue minus product cost minus labor. What you actually keep from each service, not what the price tag suggests.
See Both Sides Clearly
Some salons make most of their profit on retail. Others barely break even on product and survive on services. Some services are cash cows. Others barely cover the chair time and product cost. You can’t optimize what you can’t see.
We separate service revenue from retail revenue. We track product cost against services. We give you reports that show where the money actually comes from, so you can make decisions about pricing, product lines, and which services are worth pushing.
Monthly Reporting
Monthly Reporting
Service revenue, service margin, retail revenue, retail margin. Broken out so you can see which side of the business needs attention.
Pricing Clarity
Pricing Clarity
When you know your real costs, you can price services correctly. No more guessing if a color service is worth offering at that price point.
Greater Richmond's Small Business Bookkeeper
The Next Step:
A Short Conversation
Fifteen minutes to tell us what you're dealing with. We'll let you know how we can help and give you a clear price quote.
