How to track your salon's performance with reports
Tracking salon performance means monitoring key metrics like revenue, appointment volume, cancellation rates, and team utilisation. Regular reporting helps you spot trends, identify problems early, and make informed decisions about your business.
Key metrics worth tracking
Revenue and sales
Total revenue over time, broken down by day, week, or month. Track services and retail products separately if possible. Compare periods to spot growth or decline.
Appointment volume
How many appointments you're completing. Track new clients versus returning clients to understand where business is coming from.
Cancellation and no-show rates
What percentage of appointments are cancelled or missed? High rates indicate problems with your booking process or client commitment.
Service popularity
Which services are booked most often? Which generate the most revenue? This informs your service menu and pricing decisions.
Team utilisation
How fully booked is each team member? Low utilisation might indicate scheduling issues or demand problems. Very high utilisation might mean you need more staff.
When to review reports
- Daily: Quick check on today's bookings and yesterday's revenue
- Weekly: Review the past week's performance, compare to previous weeks
- Monthly: Deeper analysis of trends, team performance, service mix
- Quarterly: Big-picture review of growth, seasonal patterns, strategy
Consistency matters more than frequency. A weekly review you actually do is better than a daily review you skip.
What to look for
Reports are only useful if you act on what they show:
- Declining revenue: Is it fewer appointments or lower average sale?
- High cancellation rates: Which services or team members are affected?
- Underperforming services: Should you promote them, reprice them, or drop them?
- Uneven utilisation: Are some team members overbooked while others have gaps?
- Seasonal patterns: When do you need extra capacity? When can you reduce hours?
Team performance
Tracking individual performance helps you:
- Identify top performers and understand what they do differently
- Spot team members who need support or training
- Make fair decisions about scheduling and client allocation
- Set realistic targets based on actual data
Use performance data constructively. The goal is improvement, not punishment. Share data with team members so they understand where they stand.
Getting started with reporting
If you're not tracking performance yet:
- 1Start with revenue and appointment counts—the basics
- 2Pick one day per week to review numbers
- 3Write down what you notice (even informally)
- 4Add more metrics as you get comfortable
- 5Use software that generates reports automatically if possible
Manual tracking works but requires discipline. Built-in reporting in salon software removes the data entry burden.
Exporting data
Sometimes you need data outside your booking system:
- Accounting: Export sales data for your bookkeeper or accountant
- Tax time: Revenue reports by period for GST/BAS if applicable
- Deeper analysis: Export to spreadsheets for custom calculations
- Business planning: Historical data for forecasting or loan applications
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