InsightTrack Bookkeeping gives hair salons full-service monthly bookkeeping in QuickBooks Online — transaction coding, bank reconciliations, AR/AP, and monthly financial statements — on flat-rate packages starting at $300 per month. One bookkeeper on your file every month. See package pricing or book a free consultation.
Who This Is For
Salon books get tangled because the same building runs several business models at once. Commission stylists are employees whose service revenue belongs to the salon. Booth renters are tenants whose service revenue is theirs and who pay you rent. Retail product is inventory with sales tax. Tips flow through the card processor and have to reach payroll. And the POS — Square, Vagaro, GlossGenius, Boulevard, Phorest — deposits everything net of fees in one lump.
InsightTrack sets up salon books that separate service revenue, retail revenue, and booth rent income; reconcile the POS to the bank net of fees; route tips through payroll correctly; keep back-bar supplies and retail inventory distinct; and track sales tax as a liability. You get a monthly P&L with service, retail, and rent each showing their own margin, and revenue per chair or stylist to price and schedule against.
Built for commission salons, booth-rental salons, hybrids, barbershops, and suite-based owners with more than one location across Arkansas and remotely nationwide.
What Makes Bookkeeping for Hair Salons Different
Commission vs. booth rent
Commission stylists' service sales are salon revenue with stylist pay as cost of revenue. Booth renters' sales are not salon revenue at all — only their rent is. We keep the two models on separate lines so the P&L isn't inflated by money that was never yours.
Tips
Card tips collected through the POS belong to stylists and must be reported through payroll. We reconcile tip totals from the POS to payroll so tips aren't sitting in revenue or being paid out untracked.
Retail product and back-bar
Retail product is inventory sold with sales tax; back-bar color and supplies are cost of services. We keep them distinct so retail margin is real and sales tax is right.
POS deposits net of fees
Square, Vagaro, and GlossGenius deposit services, retail, tips, and sales tax in one batch net of processing fees. We break every deposit back into its parts monthly.
How We Set Up Your Books
Salon books use a chart of accounts with service revenue, retail revenue, and booth rent income on separate lines; stylist commissions, back-bar supplies, and cost of retail goods as cost of revenue; and overhead below for rent, utilities, software, insurance, marketing, and owner pay. Retail inventory, sales tax payable, and tips payable live on the balance sheet.
- POS reconciled — Square, Vagaro, GlossGenius, Boulevard, or Phorest batches split into services, retail, tips, and tax, net of fees
- Booth rent as rental income — renters' payments tracked by chair, with 1099 reporting handled where it applies
- Tips reconciled to payroll — POS tip totals matched to Gusto or QuickBooks Payroll each period
- Retail inventory and sales tax — product purchases as inventory, cost of goods recorded on sale, tax held as a liability
- Revenue by stylist or chair — service and retail sales tracked per stylist where the POS supports it
The Numbers We Track for Hair Salons
Every client gets a monthly P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow statement. For hair salons we also report the operating numbers that drive decisions, and can build them into a dashboard that updates as the books close.
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Revenue per chair
Service plus retail revenue per occupied chair, by month. It tells you whether the next hire should be a stylist or a bigger space.
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Retail as a percent of service revenue
A retail attachment number the whole industry benchmarks against — and the fastest way to grow margin without adding chairs.
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Stylist compensation as a percent of service revenue
Commissions and payroll burden against the services they produced. Where a commission structure quietly stops working.
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Back-bar cost per service dollar
Color and supply cost against service revenue, so product waste and price increases show up in the numbers instead of the shelf.
Serving Hair Salons in Arkansas and Nationwide
InsightTrack is based in Conway, Arkansas, and works with hair salons in Little Rock, Conway, Maumelle, and across Central Arkansas, plus Fayetteville, Rogers, Bentonville, and Springdale in Northwest Arkansas.
The work is done in QuickBooks Online with documents shared through a secure portal, so location doesn't limit who we can help. We also serve hair salons in Texas and nationwide. See all locations.
Frequently Asked Questions
I have both commission stylists and booth renters. Can you handle that?
Yes. Commission stylists' services are recorded as salon revenue with their pay as cost of revenue; booth renters' payments are recorded as rental income by chair, and their own service sales stay out of your books entirely.
How do you handle tips?
Card tips collected through the POS are recorded as a liability owed to stylists and reconciled to payroll each period, so they're reported correctly and never counted as salon revenue.
Do you work with Square, Vagaro, or GlossGenius?
Yes. We break each POS deposit into services, retail, tips, and sales tax net of processing fees, and reconcile it to the bank monthly.
What does bookkeeping for a salon cost?
Flat-rate packages start at $300 per month, which covers many single-location salons and barbershops. Salons with retail inventory, stylists on payroll, and multiple locations would usually run $400 to $900 per month depending on volume.
Do you serve salons in Arkansas?
Yes. InsightTrack is based in Conway and works with salons and barbershops in Little Rock, Conway, Northwest Arkansas, and statewide, plus remotely nationwide.
Get In Touch
Bring your current setup — QuickBooks file, spreadsheet, or shoebox — and we'll tell you what the monthly close would cost and what a cleanup would involve. Call (501) 697-1919 or email marcus@insighttrackbookkeeping.com.