JohnHamer1977

Is there any Complete Salon Management Software solutions?

I want my purchasing-sales-client database-accounts-payrole software based... are there any full solutions that do this?

Or are there any that can be integrated to cover the above?

thanks

JohnHamer1977

I have found some that seemed OK

• i-salon (I think a lot of colleges use this),
• SalonIris (looks OK, I've played with the trial version)
• solartrack (looks brill but very very expensive)
• helios (American stuff and I'm in the UK but looks good and seems cheap in the short term)

etc etc

In the US you can get a good one called Nichesoft BeautyTrack BUT they won't sell to the UK because of support issues.
It's a good one because it interfaces/intergrates with Quickbooks Accounting or Book Keeping software.
And I know Quickbooks has a Payrole thing that works out all the staffs PAYE stuff so there's very little paperwork to do.
I want to make my salon management as paperless as possible.

Tropictan

Hi John, im also located in the uk and have been having problems myself sourcing the 'right' sw, my salon provides tanning beds, spray tanning and nails and beauty so too wanted sw to operate the whole salon, the 2 big names in the uk for sw, i would'nt now give the time of day to. The 1 i may be going with so far is called salon manager for tanning, if you want i can give you the contact details for the guy who was happy too come out and demo, more than i can say for the other two. as for integrating with your accounting sw im not sure about that 1 if it does or not?

JohnHamer1977

Hi,

Yes I would appreciate any further info on the software you are considering thanks.

Whats put you of the other 2 companies? Which companies were they?

you can email me if you don't want to post on the open forum...
JohnHamer1977@hotmail.com

thanks

Tropictan

no i dont have a problem, imho, tantrack (currently using) found it to be extremely limited and basic, about all it does is turn the beds on and off, reporting absolutely crap, cheap looking, blah blah blah, cant wait to ditch it. And then solartrack, i would'nt mind it being so expensive if they could of been bothered to call you back! downloaded the demo version, but you have to set it up, ok not rocket science but i've got better things to do with my time. also proberbly heard more negative things about sw/company than positive. dont like the idea also that you dont own it, if you dont renew each year it stops working, yeh great, got you by the balls or wat!! but wat bugged me most of all was that they could'nt be arsed to return my calls, when im interested in buying a product and i contact the company not once but twice and they still cant be f**kin arsed to call back AHHHHHhhhhhh happens far too often in this country bad customer service as your probly finding out . For the sw im considering i'll email the details to you.

Marca

Same frustrations here. We offer different activities that are all linked together. I've talked to many software distributors about expanding the programs they offered. Eg. expand a tanning program for other activities or a fitness program for tanning activities. But customizing those programs proved to be much more expensive than hire a software designer to design your own custom made software. Of course this has downsides as well, but after (2!!!) years of design I now have a good system.

JohnHamer1977

Thanks for your email.

The solartrack has pitched itself out of my market for the price/yearly costs reasons.

Did you look at SalonIris?

JohnHamer1977

How much has it cost you to develop your software?
What features does it have?
If it's good maybe you could sell copies?

Marca

It cost approximately € 5000. It was a fixed price and they spent many more hours on it!

It is an appointment system voor tanning beds, squash, tennis, fysiotherapy, nail salon and there can be other activities easily added. To make an reservation they source from the address system. A reservation stays 'red' until it's paid for.

It has an adress system what the appointment system uses. In this address system you can add all kinds of remarks or properties that you find useful.

It's an administrative system: it generates lists with articles bought (per day, per employee, etc.), turnover and for VAT.

What made our software special (and difficult) is that we have several payment options: cash, EFT's, credit card, invoice, but also we have a card that people buy upfront and they can do all activities on this card. It's got eg. 25 'units' and if you tan one time, it costs 2 units, if you go to the gym it costs 3 units, etc. The software calculates the value of these units and add them to the activities, as there are different VAT tariffs....

Maybe I could sell copies, but it's in Dutch... the provider thought about selling copies, but because the whole process was so complicated, they don't want to service too many clients with this system.... I'm happy with it though. It does exactly what I want it to do.

JohnHamer1977

Sounds like a clever peice of software Marca.

I used to work in a manufacturing environment and we had our own software developed and it evolved into being near perfect.