Managing your salon’s product inventory doesn’t need to be a time consuming and frustrating process. How you manage your product stock can have a real impact on your business’s profitability, for better or worse. With a great management system in place, your profits can see some serious improvements! If you’re struggling with spreadsheets, purchase orders, and manual inventory counts, it’s time to ditch those outdated methods and upgrade to a salon software that does the work for you – and produces better results. If you have salon management software already, you want to make the most of it to ensure that your cash flow is optimized, that you can accurately assess how your salon is using backbar stock, and have insight into the health of your retail product sales.
The Importance Of Good Salon And Spa Inventory Management
Effective inventory management is critical to your salon business. Product that you have already purchased is cash you have already spent and need to recover. For small businesses especially, adequate cash flow can be the difference between surviving and growing or closing your doors for good. Buying too much product can tie up cash that you need to cover other business expenses or prevent you from making profit.
Not buying enough product can lead to frustration for your service providers and customers. Your stylists and technicians need product to perform their services, and your customers want to know that they can rely on you to have their favorite retail items in stock. Poor stock management can cause your customers to shop elsewhere and even send your providers to other salons.
It can be a delicate balance that you have to explore until you find the sweet spot for each item. To help you best assess the right amount of each product to carry at your salon or spa, you need to use a great salon and spa management system that has a robust set of inventory control features. Here are some of the top benefits of using salon software for inventory management:
- Saves Time
- Improves Cash Flow
- Improves Profit
- Improves Customer Experience And Satisfaction
- Streamlines The Ordering Process
- Reduces Overstock
- Reduces Shrinkage
The Best Salon Management Software Features For Inventory Control
When you’re looking for the best salon software to help support your inventory control, there are several key features that you want to look for. You need a cloud-based salon software so that your inventory is always accurate to the minute and can be tracked and accessed from any computer or device that you (and your staff) use to make retail sales and record salon usage. The software should have reporting features that help you track product usage, costs, sales, and purchase orders. And the software should have an integrated point of sale (POS) system that allows you to scan barcodes or QR codes.
These three features work together to help you maintain great control of your inventory, make informed decisions about your product ordering needs, and reduce human error as well as the workload of managing the inventory process.
Optimizing Your Inventory System For Business Management
To make the best use of your salon management system for inventory control, there are a few key steps to take before you start entering your products. STX Software’s inventory management system will help you organize your suppliers, product lines, and inventory groups. When you set up these categories and enter the relevant data, it optimizes the software to seamlessly support purchasing, reporting, and quickly adding and organizing future products.
Setup Suppliers: Create and edit suppliers for each company your business orders products from with their detailed contact information. The supplier(s) will be assigned to products created later, and used to create purchase orders.
Setup Inventory Groups: Create and edit the types of inventory your business carries (shampoo, styling aids, nail polish, skin care, etc.). Make sure to note if the products in this line are retail (taxable) or professional use.
Setup Product Lines: Create and edit the companies and/or the product lines to later assign to products. Unique colors relating to the product line can also be assigned to identify them quickly during the checkout process. You should add each Inventory Group sold with the product line as well as the units of measure.
While this initial data entry and organization may take a little bit of extra time, you don’t want to skip it! And our SalonInteractive integration will even import popular suppliers, product lines, products, and inventory groups for you.
Setting Up Your Inventory With Salon Software
Once you have your products entered into the inventory system, the software will automate much of the work for you to track and record sales and let you know when it’s time to place new purchase orders. You want to make sure that every item you enter into the system is accurate to avoid hiccups in your ordering process down the road. This will also increase the time savings benefit of your software solution.
Remember that you can use your salon and spa management software for more than just retail and backbar service products! Equipment; cleaning supplies; towels, robes, and capes; office supplies and more can all be included in your inventory system. Any items that you need to support your daily operations should be in the system if you want to include them in your inventory reporting and if you want to track their use, your costs, and streamline their purchasing.
When you are entering the products into the inventory system, you’ll need the following information:
- Product Name
- SKU Number (or numbers, if there are multiple)
- Supplier Stock Number (if different from the SKU)
- Size
- Unit Of Measure
- Wholesale Cost
- Client Price (for retail items)
- Minimum Stock Level (how much you want to have on hand)
- Minimum Order Amount (from the supplier)
In addition to these, you might want to include other data such as if the item is taxable, if it is for retail sale or professional use (to ensure the customer pays the retail price, not your wholesale cost), a product image, and alternate suppliers if you get the item from more than one vendor.
Purchase Orders Informed By Your Point Of Sale System
Once you have organized your inventory system and entered your products, your software helps to streamline and automate the reordering process. Because you have told the software what your minimum stock must be for each product item, and it records every usage and sale through the integrated POS system, it knows when you need to place an order to maintain those minimum stock levels.
Your software will alert you by sending an email, so you will never find yourself unexpectedly out of a product (unless a customer buys your entire stock in one swoop). When you receive the email alert, you will go to your purchase orders menu, select the supplier, and the purchase order will be created for you based on the current needs recognized by the system. You can always edit or make changes to the order, such as adjusted product amounts or a price change if the supplier is having a sale. And you can add additional items using the SKU number and search feature.
Grow Your Business With Inventory Reporting
One of the best ways for salon owners to utilize salon scheduling software is to explore its inventory reporting capabilities to gain insights into inventory performance. You can generate reports on product sales, inventory usage, and even get an exact ROI for each item.
STX Software includes a full suite of inventory reports. These reports will give you a comprehensive view of your inventory status at any moment (like the On Hand Product Report) and performance over time (like the Product Sales Report). They’re easy to generate and read, using table format to display the report data clearly.
Analyzing this data helps you make informed decisions about your inventory and identify areas for growth, helping to guide business owners through purchasing and product decisions. For example, you can use the Product Sales By Rank Report to see what your top and bottom selling products are. This data can help minimize over-ordering product that will sit longer on your shelves and help you select which product to increase your orders of to encourage higher sales and bring in more revenue.
STX Software For Inventory Management, Salon Scheduling, And More
By taking the time to organize and streamline your inventory management system, you’re making an investment into the health of your business and making your job easier in the long run. Learn the ins and outs of your inventory management features, optimize your system, and upload your products to set the foundation for streamlined purchase ordering and business reporting.
The automation that comes with your salon booking software can optimize and improve many other aspects of your salon business: employee management, appointment booking, email marketing campaigns, customer management, and much more. Salon software helps you manage your salon with ease, and gives you back the time in your day to focus on fostering client relations, supporting and guiding your team, providing excellent services, and growing your business.
You can give us a call at (800) 766-4778 or visit our website to book a live demo with our team. Contact us today to learn more about STX!