Stock: count what you use, not just what you sell
Set up products, tell each service what it consumes — whole packs or millilitres — and let completing an appointment take it off the shelf. Plus low-stock warnings, stocktakes and what each service really leaves you.
Most stock systems count things with a price tag. A salon's biggest product cost is the tint, the developer, the wax and the ink it uses doing the work — none of which is ever sold over the counter. Slotora counts both, and the part that matters runs on its own once it is set up.
1. Add your products
Go to Stock and add each product with the unit you think in (box, bottle, tube, ml, g) and what one pack costs you. Tick 'Also sold to clients over the counter' only for retail products — everything else is back bar, and you will not be asked for a retail price you would have to invent.
2. Say how much is in one pack
This is the field that decides everything else. Leave it at 1 for anything you count whole: a box of gloves is one box. Put 50 for a 50 ml bottle of polish and count that product in millilitres — the shelf shows 150 ml (3 bottles), a manicure can take 20, and the cost of that 20 ml is what the reports subtract. Get this right at the start; changing it later does not rewrite the movements already recorded.
3. Tell each service what it consumes
Open a service and tick the products it uses, then set how much of each — in the same unit you chose above. A blonde colour takes 1 box of tint; a manicure takes 20 ml of polish. This is the only place you describe consumption, and you describe it once.
4. It comes off when the work is done
Stock is deducted when you mark the appointment completed — never at booking. A cancellation, a reschedule or a no-show therefore never leaves a box missing from your count, and you never type a stock movement for ordinary work. Marking the same appointment complete twice deducts once.
5. Be told before you run out
- Set 'Warn me at' per product — the level where you want to be warned (0 means never). A tint you can buy locally on the day needs a lower level than one that takes a week to arrive.
- The warning appears on your dashboard and at the top of the stock list, so the reorder list reads itself off the top of the page.
- Levels and warnings are in your unit of measure: 40 ml, not 'nearly a bottle'.
6. Correcting the shelf after a stocktake
Count the shelf, then use the movement form with the reason 'Counted' and enter what is actually there. Slotora records the difference as its own line — so if something was dropped, spilt or walked out of the door, the history says when the shelf and the software diverged and by how much. There is deliberately no editable quantity box: a number you can simply overwrite agrees with whoever typed last and answers nothing.
7. What each service really leaves you
Because every deduction is tied to the appointment that caused it, Slotora can subtract materials from takings and show contribution per service: revenue minus product, per job. That is what makes a £120 colour eating £34 of product comparable with a £45 pedicure eating £2 — and it writes the headline for you: 'Balayage leaves 18% more per appointment than Highlights.'
One word of care: it is contribution, not profit. Rent, wages and card fees are not in it. It is the right number for ranking services against each other, and the wrong number for deciding whether the month paid for itself.