This guide brings everything together in one place: setup, daily operations, VAT, vouchers, reports, PDF exports, customer support, therapist access, stock control, and troubleshooting. It is written for salon owners, managers, and front-desk staff who want clear answers, practical steps, and less guesswork.
Updated March 14, 2026Covers live featuresPublic + staff friendly
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New
Voucher engine
Targeting, limits, audience rules, analytics, and booking/POS support.
Finance
VAT-aware billing
VAT-inclusive pricing with extracted tax display across invoices and reports.
Exports
Professional PDF exports
Reports now download as polished branded PDFs that are easier to share, print, and keep on file.
Recent platform changes
Latest updates
Fresh today
BeautyApp now covers more of the real day-to-day running of a salon, so this guide focuses on practical workflows instead of isolated pages. These are the updates most likely to affect how your team works each day.
Reports now save as proper PDFs
The Reports workspace exports branded PDFs with salon logo, generated timestamp, prepared-by details, filters, metrics, notes, and paginated tables.
Voucher system is fully live
Codes can now target channels, services, products, customer audiences, and campaign tags while enforcing date windows and usage limits.
Finance workflows are more complete
VAT is set up from Salon Setup and is shown clearly across invoices, checkout, and reporting when it applies to your salon.
Reports now make it easier to review VAT-related figures without building your own manual calculations.
Invoices and checkout only show VAT details when VAT is turned on for your business, so the screens stay clean when you do not need tax information.
Customer workflows are stronger
Staff customer profiles include a direct "Login to Customer Portal" handoff for the selected customer.
Customer booking supports optional products as part of the same booking journey.
Customer history is more reliable, so older or incomplete invoice records do not break the customer view.
Start here
Getting started
Essentials
If your salon is new to BeautyApp, use this section as the safest path from sign-up to your first real bookings, checkout, and staff use. The goal is not to set up everything at once. The goal is to get the essentials right first.
Who uses what
Owners and admins configure the salon, staff access, VAT, AI settings, services, stock, and limits.
Front-desk staff manage appointments, customers, vouchers, POS, and invoice collection.
Therapists can be given simpler access focused on their diary, availability, and the parts of the system they actually need.
Minimum setup before you go live
Complete your first location with phone, address, and city.
Create at least one service and one therapist.
Confirm salon settings such as branding, invoice identity, VAT, and anything your team will rely on at reception from day one.
Salon Setup is where you tell BeautyApp how your business should present itself. Your business name, invoice wording, VAT details, branding, and optional AI settings all start here, so it should be treated as part of your business setup, not as a page to "come back to later."
VAT-inclusive pricing
When VAT is enabled, prices stay VAT-inclusive. The app extracts VAT for display and reporting rather than adding it on top.
Invoice naming changes with VAT
Invoices show "Tax Invoice" when VAT is enabled and plain "Invoice" when it is not.
Recommended VAT setup flow
Open Salon Setup and enable VAT only if your business should issue VAT-aware invoices.
Enter the VAT percentage and, when applicable, your VAT number and registration details.
Review one invoice after saving to confirm the top information area shows the right labels and details.
What changes when VAT is off
POS and invoices hide VAT rows and VAT references.
VAT-specific reports are hidden from the Reports workspace.
Invoice documents use the non-tax invoice identity.
The appointments calendar is the working board for the salon. The healthiest workflow is: create, confirm, check in, check out, then invoice or take payment.
Recommended booking lifecycle
Create the booking with the correct customer, service, therapist, date, and location.
Confirm it once the client agrees, so your diary reflects committed work.
Check in when the client arrives and check out when the service ends.
Use checkout to transition directly into POS and invoice/payment collection.
What staff should watch every morning
Verify therapist assignment and location for every booking.
Look for calendar gaps or overlaps and reschedule before the day gets busy.
Open the Appointment Card for any booking that needs detail, notes, or action history.
A customer profile should help your team answer questions quickly, not force them to jump between pages. In BeautyApp, the customer record brings together contact details, visit history, invoices, notes, and customer-portal support in one place.
What the customer card is for
Review contact details, notes, booking history, invoice history, and the services the client usually books.
Use the customer portal handoff when a staff member wants to guide a client through their live customer experience step by step.
Use Add Booking when you want to create a new booking while already looking at that client's information.
The easiest ways to open the right customer record
Open a customer from the Customers page when you want to browse the full customer list.
Use the top search when you already know the client's name and want to jump straight into their profile.
When you click Login to Customer Portal, BeautyApp opens the real customer view for that client so you can help without asking them to log in again on their side.
BeautyApp handles service checkout, product sales, invoice review, and payment collection as one connected process. That means your team should think of checkout and invoicing as the final step of the client journey, not as a separate admin task to remember later.
Appointment checkout is flexible
When staff open checkout from an appointment, they can add extra services or products, adjust quantities, edit prices, and remove lines before invoicing.
Vouchers and manual discounts do not stack
During invoice and POS flows, manual discounts and vouchers are intentionally mutually exclusive.
Appointment billing
Use Check-Out on the Appointment Card once the service is finished.
Review lines carefully before finalizing the invoice.
Record payment method and confirm the invoice becomes paid.
Retail and walk-in sales
Retail sales do not require an appointment.
If a product tracks stock, the quantity reduces once the sale is completed and paid.
Use the invoice as the sale record even if your team is not printing a receipt from the till.
Not every team member needs the same information. These quick guides help each role focus on the parts of BeautyApp that matter most during a normal salon day.
Owner / admin
Set policy, not just data
Owners and admins decide how the salon should operate inside the system: pricing, VAT, staff access, stock discipline, and promotion rules.
Finish Salon Setup, VAT, invoice identity, and branding first.
Decide therapist and location limits before onboarding more staff.
Review reports, vouchers, and invoice behavior weekly, not only when something looks wrong.
Front desk
Run the diary and collect the money
Front-desk staff spend most of their time in Appointments, Customers, POS, and Invoices. Their job is to keep the diary accurate and make sure every service ends with the correct billing.
Open the calendar first, not the dashboard, when the day starts.
Use customer profiles to see history and jump into the portal context when needed.
Close the loop at checkout so appointments do not end the day without billing.
Therapist
Protect availability and schedule clarity
Therapists need correct hours, a clear schedule, and access that matches what the owner wants them to manage. Some salons also allow therapists to see reporting, but that is optional.
Keep working hours current if self-management is enabled.
Escalate wrong permissions before assuming the portal is broken.
Use the therapist view for schedule discipline, not for admin configuration.
Promotions engine
Voucher system
The voucher system is built for real salon promotions, not just one simple code. You can control who the offer is for, where it works, how long it runs, and how often it can be used, while still keeping reporting clear.
What this means for your team
Your reception team does not need to memorize every promotion. If the voucher has been set up properly, BeautyApp helps enforce the rules for them during booking and checkout.
Common salon examples
Use vouchers for first-visit specials, quiet-day promotions, product campaigns, birthday offers, or "spend above this amount" incentives without creating different manual workarounds every time.
What vouchers can control
Whether a voucher is active, how long it runs, how many times it can be used in total, and how often one client can use it.
Minimum spend rules, first-visit offers, where the offer works, and whether a percentage discount should be capped.
Which services, products, categories, or customer groups should receive the offer.
Where vouchers now work
Online customer booking when you want the client to redeem the offer themselves.
Staff booking when your team is creating or editing the booking for the client.
Appointment checkout when the offer should apply at the end of the service.
POS checkout when the client is paying for products or walk-in purchases at reception.
The system rechecks voucher rules for you
BeautyApp recalculates the discount against the real basket before applying it, which helps prevent the wrong price from slipping through.
Analytics are built in
You can see how often a code was used, how much discount it gave away, and whether the campaign actually helped bring in sales.
Reports is your main place to review salon performance. Use it to check sales, VAT, activity, and other key numbers in one consistent space, then export what you need when it is time to share or file it.
What this means for your team
Owners can review the numbers without relying on spreadsheets first, and front-desk managers can prepare a clean report for accountants, partners, or internal review without rebuilding the information by hand.
Common report moments
Use reports when you want to compare weeks, check VAT visibility, review top-performing services, measure voucher impact, or save a polished PDF before a meeting or month-end review.
How reports should be used now
Choose the report you want to review, such as a finance, activity, or performance report.
Apply the date range and any other filters that match the question you are trying to answer.
Run the report, review the figures on screen, and then export if you need to keep or share a copy.
What the PDF save includes
Salon logo and branded header.
Generated timestamp and prepared-by metadata.
Active filters, metric cards, notes, and paginated detail tables.
More stable formatting than browser snapshot export.
On-screen reports do not change when exporting
The report you are looking at stays on screen. BeautyApp simply creates a clean PDF version of that same report for download.
Why the PDF looks cleaner than the screen
The PDF is prepared as a proper document, so headings, tables, and page breaks are usually cleaner than what you would get from a simple screen capture or print attempt.
If you are reading this as a salon owner, the most important question is usually not "what does this feature do?" but "what changes for my team tomorrow morning?"
For owners and managers
You should be able to set the rules once, then expect your team to follow cleaner workflows without constant supervision.
The strongest parts of the system now connect together: bookings, client records, checkout, reporting, and promotions.
If something feels confusing, the guide should explain it in business language first, not software language.
For front-desk and daily operations
Your team should spend less time switching between screens and less time guessing what to do next.
Client help, booking changes, checkout, and voucher use should feel connected rather than fragmented.
When an issue appears, start with the practical checks in this guide before treating it as a technical failure.
Guided playbooks
How do I…
These are quick answer paths for common salon tasks. Use them when someone asks "how do I do this right now?" and you need a practical answer, not a long explanation.
Daily operations
Start the day correctly
1Open Appointments and switch to Today or the required date.
2Check therapist assignments, gaps, and overlaps before the first client arrives.
3Review any pending invoices or unfinished checkouts from the prior day.
Customer support
Open the customer portal for a client
1Open the customer profile from the Customers page or by searching for the client's name.
2Click Login to Customer Portal on the customer card.
3Use that live portal view to guide the client through bookings, profile details, or questions without asking them to log in again while you assist them.
Reporting
Save a polished report PDF
1Open Reports and run the report with the correct filters first.
2Review the active on-screen result before exporting.
3Use Export PDF to download the polished branded document.
Campaigns
Create a voucher campaign safely
1Set the active window, usage limits, and minimum spend first.
2Confirm the channel, item targeting, and customer audience rules.
3Test in the right booking or checkout channel before announcing the code.
Collections
Fix an unpaid invoice
1Open the invoice from Invoices or from the customer history.
2Check whether the billing lines are correct before collecting payment.
3Record the payment so the invoice moves from pending to paid.
Support
Decide whether an issue is configuration or a bug
1Check permissions, limits, VAT state, and voucher rules first.
2Reproduce the issue from the exact page and workflow, not from memory.
3If it still fails, capture the console or exact message and escalate with context.
People and permissions
Therapists and access control
Therapist setup affects more than a staff list. Hours, passwords, and access choices directly shape booking availability, therapist visibility, and what each team member can manage on their own.
Operational essentials
Keep working hours current so the booking system reflects real availability.
Review therapist profiles rather than editing blind from the list view whenever schedule behavior looks wrong.
Use the password reset flow when therapist or staff login access needs to be reissued.
Permissions that matter
You can decide whether a therapist is allowed to manage their own working hours.
You can also decide whether therapist-facing reports should include revenue figures.
If something looks wrong in a therapist view, check the therapist's access settings first before assuming the page itself is broken.
Inventory is optional, but once your salon sells retail products it becomes one of the easiest ways to prevent stock confusion, pricing mistakes, and end-of-month surprises. Used well, it helps your team know what was sold, what was received, and what needs attention.
What this means for your team
If your salon sells retail, staff should not be guessing whether a product is still on the shelf. Inventory gives reception and management the same version of the truth.
Common salon examples
Use it to track shampoo and treatment sales, record a supplier delivery, fix a shelf count, or explain why a best-selling product suddenly looks low.
How to set products up properly
Create products with clear names, selling prices, and categories that your staff will actually understand at reception.
Turn on stock tracking when you want quantities to reduce automatically after paid sales.
Add supplier details when you want ordering and reordering to stay organized instead of living in memory or WhatsApp messages.
Which stock page to use when
Use Purchasing Receipts when stock has physically arrived and you want to record what was received.
Use Transfers / stocktake when stock moves between locations or when you need to correct counted quantities.
Use Stock Movements when you want to understand why stock changed, not just how much changed.
AI is optional. Your salon does not need it to run BeautyApp well. If you do choose to switch it on, it should be treated like an optional business add-on that the owner or manager sets up carefully and tests before the team depends on it.
What this means for your team
Most salons should see AI as optional support, not as something the front desk must understand deeply. Management sets it up; the team should only use it once it has been tested and approved.
Good practice
Switch AI on only when you know who owns the account, who pays for usage, and who will monitor whether the results are actually useful to the business.
OpenAI flow
Choose OpenAI if your salon already has an OpenAI account and API key.
Paste the key into AI Settings and save your changes.
Run Test Connection so you know it works before staff rely on any AI-assisted workflow.
Azure OpenAI flow
Choose Azure OpenAI only if your business already uses Azure for AI access.
Enter the Azure details your provider or IT contact gave you, then save and test the connection.
If the test fails, first confirm that the selected provider matches the details you entered before treating it as a deeper technical problem.
Use this section when you know what you are trying to do, but BeautyApp still seems to block the action or show something unexpected. It is designed to help salon teams solve the obvious causes first before raising a support issue.
If access is blocked
Ask configuration questions first
Before assuming something is broken, check whether the person is still finishing setup, has the right access level, is signed into the correct salon, or has reached a plan limit.
Is onboarding incomplete?
Is the wrong role or salon account being used?
Is the system blocking an action due to plan limits?
If totals look wrong
Separate pricing logic from display logic
VAT, vouchers, and manual discounts all have explicit rules. Most "wrong total" reports are rule misunderstandings rather than arithmetic bugs.
Is VAT enabled and expected to be extracted, not added?
Is a manual discount blocking voucher use?
Does the voucher actually target this basket and channel?
If exports disappoint
Know what the report PDF is supposed to do
The PDF is meant to be a cleaner document version of the report, not an exact screenshot of what the browser looks like.
Run the report first and confirm the on-screen result.
Expect cleaner PDF layout and branding than the browser canvas.
If data is missing in PDF, verify the active report state before export.
WhatsApp
Getting Started with WhatsApp Business
Beta
WhatsApp Business lets your salon send appointment confirmations, reminders, and marketing campaigns directly to customers' phones. This guide covers what you need and what it costs.
What you need
A Meta Business Account (free), a dedicated phone number for WhatsApp Business (cannot be your personal WhatsApp number), and a Meta Developer Account to create an app.
What it costs
Meta charges per conversation, not per message. Utility messages (confirmations, reminders) cost about $0.02 each. Marketing messages cost slightly more. The first 1,000 service conversations per month are free.
Setup Steps
Create a Meta Business Account at business.facebook.com
Verify your business with official documents
Create a Developer Account at developers.facebook.com
Create a new app of type "Business"
Add the WhatsApp product to your app
Register a dedicated phone number
Create a System User and generate a permanent access token
Enter your credentials in WhatsApp > Setup in BeautyApp
WhatsApp
Creating & Submitting Message Templates
Beta
WhatsApp requires all outbound messages to use pre-approved templates. Learn how to create templates, submit them for Meta review, and manage the approval process.
Why templates?
WhatsApp protects users from spam by requiring businesses to use pre-approved message templates for outbound messages. You can only send messages using templates that Meta has reviewed and approved.
Template Rules
Template names must be lowercase letters, numbers, and underscores only
Use {{1}}, {{2}}, etc. for variable placeholders (customer name, date, etc.)
UTILITY templates (confirmations, reminders) are approved faster than MARKETING
Templates go through: Local Draft > Submitted > Approved/Rejected
Only APPROVED templates can be used to send messages
Rejected templates show the reason - fix and resubmit
How to Create a Template
Go to WhatsApp > Templates and click "New Template"
Choose a category: UTILITY for transactional, MARKETING for promotional
Write your message body with variable placeholders
Map each variable to a field (customer name, date, time, etc.)
Save as Local Draft, then click "Submit" to send to Meta for review
Check back in 24-48 hours and click "Sync Status" to see if approved
WhatsApp
Sending Your First Campaign
Beta
Campaigns let you broadcast WhatsApp messages to groups of customers. Target by service, location, or send to all opted-in customers.
Always test first
Use the "Test Send" button to send a single message to your own phone before launching a campaign. This confirms your template works and variables are mapped correctly.
Campaign Workflow
Go to WhatsApp > Campaigns and click "New Campaign"
Give it a name (e.g. "Spring Promo April 2026")
Select an APPROVED template
Choose your audience (all customers, by service, by location, etc.)
Use "Test Send" to send one message to your phone first
When ready, click "Send" to start the broadcast
Watch the progress bar in real-time
View results in WhatsApp > Analytics
Audience Types
All Customers - every customer with WhatsApp opt-in enabled
By Service - customers who have booked a specific service
By Location - customers who have visited a specific location
Opted-In Only - same as All (opt-in is always required)
Manual Selection - pick specific customers (coming soon)
WhatsApp
Understanding WhatsApp Delivery & Pricing
Beta
Learn about WhatsApp conversation-based pricing, delivery statuses, and how to keep costs down.
Message Statuses
Queued - message is waiting to be sent
Sent - accepted by Meta API (one checkmark)
Delivered - arrived on customer device (two checkmarks)
Read - customer opened the message (two blue checkmarks)
Failed - could not be delivered (see error code)
Pricing Categories
UTILITY conversations (confirmations, reminders): ~$0.02 per conversation (~R0.37)
MARKETING conversations (campaigns, promos): ~$0.05 per conversation (~R0.93)
SERVICE conversations (customer-initiated): first 1,000/month free
A "conversation" is a 24-hour messaging window, not a single message
Multiple messages within 24 hours count as one conversation
WhatsApp
Troubleshooting Common WhatsApp Errors
Beta
When messages fail, Meta returns error codes. Here is what they mean and how to fix them.
Common Error Codes
131030 - Rate limit hit: Reduce your batch size or increase the interval between batches in Setup
131026 - Message undeliverable: The number is not on WhatsApp or is unreachable
131005 - Permission denied: Check your access token has the whatsapp_business_messaging permission
131009 - Parameter invalid: A template variable value is missing or the wrong type
132000 - Template not found: Template does not exist on Meta or is not approved yet
132001 - Template params mismatch: The number of variables does not match the template
133010 - Phone not registered: Your business phone number is not registered with WhatsApp Business API
131048 - Spam rate limit: Messages flagged as spam - review your content quality
131021 - Recipient limit: You have reached the max recipients for today
131031 - Account locked: Your WhatsApp Business account is restricted by Meta
