Software for tanning salons

Tanning salon software that counts sessions in minutes

A tanning salon does not sell an hour of a specialist's time. It sells a few minutes in a booth, and regulars come back again and again throughout the season. That creates needs other beauty businesses do not have: the equipment sets the capacity, packages are bought in minutes, and one front desk employee runs many short sessions in a single shift. Tanning salon software has to be built around those facts, or the front desk drifts back to a paper log.

Two booths with different lamps

A stand-up booth and a lie-down bed are set up as separate resources, because a resource in the system can be a piece of equipment or a room, not only a person. Each one gets its own list of sessions with different lengths and its own schedule. If one booth is closed for a lamp change, its schedule is edited separately while the other keeps taking clients. Clients see a resource's short description while they are still choosing, so that is the place to explain how the booths differ, and the full description appears at the confirmation step. That way a newcomer does not end up in an unfamiliar booth by chance. The booking form shows each booth's open time around the clock, so someone who decides to tan after work books a session without calling the front desk. A regular sees their upcoming sessions in the client's personal account and, if the salon allows it, reschedules on their own when evening plans change.

A package of minutes instead of a visit pass

For tanning, a time-based membership is the natural fit: every session takes as many minutes off the balance as it actually lasted, and both the client and the front desk can see what is left. When the minutes run low, a balance change notification measured in time fires, and the client gets an offer to top up before showing up with an empty balance. How to set the thresholds and channels is covered in the article on membership notifications.

Front desk pay and package sales

Front desk staff at a tanning salon are often paid a fixed rate per hour or per day. To get the front desk offering packages of minutes rather than single sessions, a separate rule for membership sales is added to the pay scheme.

A new package before the old one runs out

To stop clients from taking a break between packages, a membership discount of the renewal window type applies when someone buys a new package before the old one runs out. If package sales get their own income category, cash flow shows on a separate line how much the packages brought in compared with single sessions. Hair salons, nail studios and tattoo shops are described alongside on the page for beauty businesses.