Booth rental salon software for Canada, for the mixed salon
Very few Canadian salons are all one thing. Two stylists on commission, one renting a station by the month, an esthetician renting the back room: the calendar is shared, the money is not. Slotora asks how each person works and keeps her money where it belongs from the card tap to the end of the month — and it never puts itself between you and a renter's rent.
Set up a mixed salonWhere a renter's money goes, step by step
In the order it happens, from the moment you add her to the team.
01
You say how she works
On the team screen, per person: works for the salon, or rents her place. It is not a mode for the whole business, because a real salon is mixed. A person nobody has answered for is never treated as a renter by accident.
02
Her clients pay her
She connects her own Stripe account, and card payments and deposits for her bookings go there instead of the salon's. Each payment records who it reached, so the answer does not change if she later leaves or the setting is edited.
03
Your close-out counts your cash
At the end of the day, the drawer figure you count is the salon's alone. Her cash is shown beside it as hers, and the two add back to the day's total, so a renter's busy Saturday does not show up as a shortfall in your till.
04
Refunds follow whoever was paid
Money goes back from the account that took it. The person on your front desk does not see a renter's takings at all, because seeing what was earned is a separate permission from running the counter.
05
Her rent is written down
A rent agreement per renter — an amount, weekly or monthly, and a start date — then a line for each period: paid or not, how, and who recorded it. The ledger adds up what is outstanding, names who is behind and shows how full her station actually was.
What Slotora will not do, on purpose
Each of these is a choice made after looking at how other systems handle renters.
- We do not collect the rent
- Not by card on file, not by automatic charge. The ledger records what is due and what you were paid, and the money moves between you and her by e-transfer, cheque or however you already do it. A booking system that collects rent stands between two of its own customers when they disagree.
- We do not give tax advice
- Nowhere in the product is there a sentence telling you whether a renter is self-employed or how the rent is taxed. That is your accountant's call, and the CRA's.
- Her clients are in the salon's book while she is with you
- We would rather say this on this page than in a setting nobody reads. If she leaves, the records stay with the salon and she can take an export of her own clients. Agree that with her before she starts.
- A renter is never in a shared visit
- When a client books two people for one visit, a self-employed renter is never offered as one of them, because one payment cannot honestly be split between two businesses.
What the CRA publishes about renters, in brief
Whether someone renting a chair is self-employed is decided by the working relationship, not by what the agreement is called. The CRA's guide RC4110 lists the factors it looks at: how much control the salon has over the work, who owns the tools and equipment, whether she can hire her own helper, how much financial risk she carries and whether she can make a profit or a loss.[1] Either side can ask the CRA for a formal ruling.[2]
Hairdressing and barbering have a rule of their own. Under the Employment Insurance Regulations, a person providing the usual services in a barbering or hairdressing establishment, who is not its owner or operator, is in insurable employment.[3] The CRA's page for barbers and hairdressers explains that the owner or operator can then be treated as the employer for EI purposes even for a self-employed stylist, pays both shares of the EI premiums, and reports on a T4; the stylist remains responsible for her own CPP and income tax.[4] That page names manicurists, beauticians and massage therapists as outside the barber-and-hairdresser category.[4] The CRA's own example is a hairdresser who rents a chair, brings her own tools, keeps her own client list and sets her own prices: not an employee, yet her employment is insurable.[5]
A renter running her own business must register for GST/HST once her taxable sales pass the small supplier limit of $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters or in a single quarter.[6] Slotora does not decide any of this, does not calculate EI premiums, and does not prepare a T4 or a T4A. What it can hand your bookkeeper is each person's takings through the salon's system, month by month. Your accountant decides what they mean.
How renters count in the Canadian price
A renter with a column in your calendar is a bookable person, and the salon's subscription counts bookable people up to a cap, whether they are employees or renters. If a renter would rather keep her book entirely apart, she can run a one-person Slotora account of her own instead, and then she is not in your calendar or your count. Either way, the 14-day trial comes first.
| The salon's first bookable person | C$19 a month |
|---|---|
| Each further person, renter or employee | + C$10 a month |
| 6 or more bookable people | C$69 a month in total |
Prices in Canadian dollars. No GST/HST is added at present. Slotora takes no commission on anybody's bookings — the salon's or a renter's. Stripe charges its own fee to whichever account received the card payment.
How other salon software treats booth renters
Some competitors put the rent through their own payments. Vagaro's Canadian booth rent page offers to collect rent automatically at a frequency you set, and to deduct commission from booth rent through Vagaro Merchant Services.[7] Boulevard's salon page says it pays stylists and booth renters automatically.[8] Fresha's features page describes routing payments to self-employed team members when a sale completes.[9] Phorest's Canadian FAQ says plainly that its system is not a good fit for chair rental salons.[10]
If automatic rent collection is what you want, those products do it and Slotora does not. If you would rather your software held nobody's money, that is the difference.
What a salon with renters asks
Can employees and renters work in the same Slotora salon?
Yes. The question is asked per person, so a salon with two employees and one renter is set up exactly as it is.
Does Slotora take a cut of my renters' bookings?
No. There is no commission on any booking. A renter's card payments go to her own Stripe account, and Stripe's fee is charged there.
Can Slotora charge my renter her weekly rent?
No. It records the agreement, each period and whether it was paid. You and she settle the money yourselves, for example by Interac e-transfer.
Will Slotora tell me whether my renter is self-employed?
No. The CRA publishes the factors and offers rulings; your accountant applies them. Slotora gives you the records of who was paid what.
Can my receptionist see what a renter earns?
No. A front desk login runs the counter without seeing anybody's takings, a renter's included, unless you give it the reporting permissions yourself.
Keep the renters' money out of your till
Mark who rents, let each renter connect her own account, and write down the rent. The calendar stays one calendar.
Sources
Government pages and competitors' own pages, each read on the date shown. They are quoted for context, not as advice.
- Canada Revenue Agency — RC4110, Employee or Self-Employed? — https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/publications/rc4110/employee-self-employed.html · read
- Canada Revenue Agency — how to ask for a CPP/EI ruling — https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/canada-pension-plan-cpp-employment-insurance-ei-rulings/cpp-ei-explained/canada-pension-plan-employment-insurance-explained-11/how-to-ask-for-ruling.html · read
- Employment Insurance Regulations (SOR/96-332), section 6 — https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-96-332/page-1.html · read
- Canada Revenue Agency — barbers and hairdressers — https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/payroll/payroll-deductions-contributions/special-situations/barbers-hairdressers.html · read
- Canada Revenue Agency — determining whether employment is pensionable or insurable — https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/canada-pension-plan-cpp-employment-insurance-ei-rulings/employee-self-employed/determine-employment-pensionable-insurable.html · read
- Canada Revenue Agency — RC4022, General Information for GST/HST Registrants — https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/publications/rc4022/general-information-gst-hst-registrants.html · read
- Vagaro — automatic rent fees (Canada) — https://www.vagaro.com/en-ca/pro/automatic-rent-fees · read
- Boulevard — salon software — https://www.joinblvd.com/salon-software · read
- Fresha — features — https://www.fresha.com/for-business/features · read
- Phorest — FAQs (Canada) — https://www.phorest.com/ca/faqs/ · read