A salon with self-employed stylists and employed ones
Most UK salons are mixed: two employed juniors on the salon's till, one stylist who rents her chair and keeps her own takings. Slotora's salon account asks the question per person, sends each guest's money to whoever it belongs to, and keeps a ledger of the rent — without ever taking a cut or collecting it for you.
One salon, two kinds of person
The same diary, the same booking page and the same client book — and two different answers to „whose money is this?”.
| Employed | Self-employed, renting a chair | |
|---|---|---|
| Her guest pays by card | Employed: Into the salon's Stripe account | Self-employed, renting a chair: Into her own Stripe account — never through yours |
| The day-close | Employed: Counted in the salon's cash and takings | Self-employed, renting a chair: Named beside the salon's figure, as hers, and not added to it |
| A refund | Employed: From the salon's account | Self-employed, renting a chair: From hers; your front desk cannot refund her money |
| End of the month | Employed: Her commission and any fixed pay on your statement | Self-employed, renting a chair: Left out of the pay statement; her rent is on the ledger instead |
| What she pays Slotora | Employed: Nothing | Self-employed, renting a chair: Nothing — no seat fee, no commission on her bookings |
How it works, step by step
Each step is working now in the salon account.
You answer one question per person
On the team screen, in the browser or the app: does she work for you, or does she rent her place? A salon is mixed, so it is never a setting for the whole business — and leaving it unanswered never makes somebody a renter by accident.
She connects her own payment account
A self-employed stylist links her own Stripe account. From then on, a deposit, an online payment or a card payment at the chair for her guest goes straight there. Slotora adds no fee; Stripe charges her its own rate.
Your till counts your money
At the end of the day the cash you are asked to count is the salon's. Hers is shown beside it, so the two still add back to the day's total and nothing goes missing — but your variance is no longer wrong by her takings.
Your pay statement leaves her out
Employed staff get a commission percentage, a separate retail rate and a fixed amount if you pay one, worked out on a month-end statement. A renter's takings are hers, so they stay out of it.
The rent ledger
What each renter has agreed to pay you and what she has paid — in the salon account in the browser, read-only in the app.
- An agreement per person: an amount, weekly or monthly, and a start date
- A line per period: paid or not, how, and who recorded it
- What is outstanding, and who is behind
- How full her chair actually was, so you can see which chair pays for itself
What it deliberately does not do
Collect the rent
The money moves between you and her the way it does today. Slotora records it; it never takes her money first and pays her afterwards.
Tell you anybody's employment status
Whether someone is genuinely self-employed is HMRC's question (and Revenue's in Ireland), not your booking system's. The setting records what you have decided.
Give you tax advice
Not one sentence of it anywhere in the product. The ledger is a record of who paid you and when.
Make her guests hers
While she works with you, her guests are in the salon's client book. If she leaves, the record stays with the salon and she can take an export. Agree that with her before she starts.
The UK question that comes with it
A self-employed stylist's takings are not your turnover — unless your till adds them in. If they are counted with yours, your figures can drift towards the VAT registration threshold on money that was never yours.
Keeping the two apart at the till is exactly what the day-close split is for. What the threshold is, and how Ireland differs, is in our article:
Someone self-employed works in your salon: whose turnover is it?Questions salon owners ask
Can a salon have both employed and self-employed stylists on one account?
Yes — that is the point of asking per person. Employed staff's payments go to the salon, a renter's to her own Stripe account, and the reports keep them apart.
Does a stylist who rents a chair pay for Slotora?
No. Nobody pays per seat on the salon account, and Slotora takes 0% of her bookings and card payments. Stripe charges its own processing fee on her account.
Will Slotora collect her chair rent for me?
No, by design. The ledger records what is due and what has been paid; the money moves between you and her however you already arrange it.
Can she take card payments on her own phone?
Yes, with Tap to Pay in the Slotora app on an Android phone, into the account the payment belongs to. On iPhone it comes with the next app version.
The rest of this product
The other pages about Slotora for busy salons.