Salon owners have a lot to think about when renting booths to hair stylists. What do you include, amenities and otherwise, in your booth rental fees? How do you recruit top talent that matches the culture of your salon, get referrals and implement online booking? Then, there’s the subject of bookkeeping. Thanks to Vagaro’s new Automatic Rent & Fees feature, collecting booth rent is no longer on this list.
Now you can charge booth renters, schedule recurring payments, generate your renter’s agreement and even deduct commission from rent directly through Vagaro. That means fewer missed, failed or unnecessary payments, increased transparency and no more time wasted keeping track of where payment is coming from.
“I’ve been working in this industry since 2010, and I’ve never seen a salon software that has these features,” said Alyssa Hare, a hair stylist and former manager at Salon 77 West, in Danville, California.
Hare knows the booth renter’s business model well and has experienced the hassle of rent collection from both sides. She shared some of her experiences and some of her favorite aspects of the Automatic Rent & Fees feature.
One Software + One Place = Time Saved
It wasn’t discovered by a genius janitor at Harvard, but this is an easy equation that addresses the biggest issues of charging and collecting employee rent.
As Hare knows well, many salons have such a big mix of full-time and part-time independent stylists on staff that it's difficult for owners to keep track of who pays what, and when. Most pay by check (more on those below) some with cash and others by credit card. Using a separate rent management software and a separate rental agreement form complicates an already complicated process.
How is this fixed? With an agreed-upon amount automatically deducted weekly or monthly from a booth renter’s bank account, with their credit card saved as a backup payment method. Booth renters simply upload their banking and credit card info into their Vagaro employee profiles, and the rest is taken care of. A set, automated schedule and two reliable payment options ensures prompt payment and, Hare said, peace of mind for everyone.
“We don’t have to think about it anymore, and owners don’t have to keep track of routing numbers and credit card information for a dozen or more stylists,” she said.
Hare can reference her digital renter’s agreement form whenever she needs to, while detailed reports show her boss exactly when and how each of her rent payments were made. Gone are the days of tracking down booth renters for their delinquent rent checks, which brings us to our next topic...
No More Checks!
Don’t get us wrong, checks still have their place. They are printed with cool designs nowadays, and pair historically well with birthday and wedding cards. They’re also a historically inconvenient way to pay for salon booth rentals.
“Imagine being a salon manager who has to collect and organize an entire quarter’s worth of checks from upwards of 20 stylists,” Hare said.
That’s a lot of paper. We know that you don’t have to imagine this Twilight Zone-esque scenario because you probably live it. Vagaro changes that by reducing reliance on checks nearly to zero.
This is also good news for booth renters who forget to drop off rent checks before leaving for vacation, run out of checks (happens to the best of us) or get sick on the day rent is due. Hare knows the third scenario well.
A colleague was nice enough to cover Hare’s rent and late fee, which she paid back a few days later. As glad as she is that this won’t happen anymore, she’s even more excited about how easy things will be for her come tax season.
Previously, when a rent check was cashed by her boss, Hare's bank account only registered the check’s number and dollar amount. Now that her rent is withdrawn via Vagaro’s Automatic Rent & Fees feature, the name of her employer is visible there as well.
“It makes it easier to track down and add up all of my rent for deductions, which I import to my end-of-the-year spreadsheet,” Hare explained.
As independent contractors, stylists and makeup artists are also famously nimble accountants. Why make them twist and bend more than they have to during tax time?
A Stronger Commission Position
If your salon sells beauty products, you likely have a commission structure that encourages your hair stylists to recommend them, rather than selling their own products.
While deducting commission from rent isn’t a new practice, being able to have it done automatically was a huge upgrade over the commission vouchers that Hare had to work with over the years. These written vouchers could be used toward either rent or products and, according to Hare, were inefficient and often caused many mistakes.
“It’s a lot like the checks, only now you have all these vouchers to collect and keep track of,” Hare said.
What if, Hare posited, a salon owner or manager forgot about a pile of these vouchers in a drawer, and then owed hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars in rent reduction or products to employees all at once?
A frightening scenario, if not a likely one. What is likely is that the owners of salons and other businesses will have less tax work to do if commission totals are set against booth rent instead of being paid out in cash.
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Charging and collecting rent used to be a cumbersome and confusing process for salons and other businesses. Vagaro’s Automatic Rent & Fees feature simplifies and streamlined the process with a neat, automatic payment structure, and by putting payment info, rental agreements, reports and other necessary elements all in one place. Learn how to take advantage of these benefits right away. You definitely won't regret it.
