Most retail software wasn't built for a salon. You're selling services — haircuts, colour treatments, blow-dries — that have no physical stock. A client might also buy a bottle of shampoo to take home. One receipt, two completely different things. Getting that right and having it flow into your accounts properly takes software that knows the difference.
Then there's the staff side. Every stylist is bringing in their own revenue. If your "system" is a cash register and a notebook, you have no idea who's driving sales, which services are popular, or whether your retail side is growing. That's money you can't manage because you can't see it.
In Vendra, services are just a different type of product. Every sale is tracked against the staff member who made it. Everything posts to your accounts automatically. Here's how it works.
Services as products: the right mental model
The key concept that makes Vendra work for service businesses is that services are simply a different type of product. In Vendra you create each service — Haircut, Ladies Colouring, Deep Conditioning Treatment, Manicure, Pedicure, Threading — as a product with the type set to "Service". Service products have a price, a tax rate and a description, exactly like a physical product. The only difference is that they do not affect inventory — there is nothing to count in a stockroom.
At the POS, the cashier or stylist searches for the service, adds it to the transaction alongside any retail products the client is taking home, and processes the payment. The receipt shows both the haircut at its price and the conditioner at its price. The accounting entry captures service revenue separately from product revenue automatically.
Retail products alongside services
Most salons and barbershops sell retail — shampoos, conditioners, styling products, nail polish, hair colour kits. These are storable products in Vendra with full inventory tracking. You receive them on purchase orders, they are counted in stock, and when sold at the POS the stock level decrements automatically. If a product falls below your reorder point, Vendra flags it for restocking.
Mixing service and retail in one transaction is completely natural. A client has a haircut and a gloss treatment, then buys a bottle of the treatment product to use at home. One bill, one receipt, one payment — everything posted to the correct revenue and stock accounts without any manual work.
Salons that previously ran two separate systems — one for services and one for retail products — find that Vendra consolidates both into a single daily report. You see total revenue, broken down by service income and product income, with no reconciliation required between systems.
POS for quick walk-in checkout
The Vendra point of sale is designed for speed. It runs in a browser on any tablet, touchscreen or desktop — no installation, no dedicated hardware required beyond a receipt printer if you want printed receipts. Walk-in clients are common in salons; the POS is set up to handle anonymous customers quickly while also giving you the option to attach the sale to an existing customer record for those clients you want to track over time.
Payment methods available at the POS include cash, credit and debit cards, and mobile money where that is the preferred method in your country. Split payments — a client paying part in cash and part by card — are fully supported. The cashier session opens with a float and closes with a reconciliation, so you know exactly what cash should be in the drawer at the end of every shift.
Customer records and visit history
For clients who return regularly, Vendra builds a complete record. Every visit — every service received, every product purchased, the date, the stylist, the amount paid — is attached to their customer profile. Over time this becomes a genuinely useful picture of your client base: who your most loyal clients are, which services they prefer, how often they visit, and how much they spend per visit on average.
This data matters for practical reasons. If a client returns after six months and says "I had a treatment last time, I would like the same thing" — you can look it up in ten seconds. If you want to identify clients who have not visited in 90 days and reach out to them, the customer list can be filtered and exported. These are capabilities that a cash register simply does not provide.
Stylist / staff performance
Each stylist signs in with their own account. Every sale they make is recorded against them. The report shows each stylist's totals by service, by product and by value — exactly what you need for commissions or a performance conversation.
Pricelists for VIP and standard clients
Create separate price lists — standard, VIP, weekday, promotional. Assign a customer to a list or choose it at checkout. The till applies the right price automatically. No manual overrides, no mistakes.
Expense management
Record your running costs — product orders, rent, utilities, equipment repairs — directly in Vendra. They go into your accounts automatically, so your monthly profit figure is accurate because nothing is missing.
Multi-branch management
If you have more than one salon, Pro Plus puts all branches under one account. Each branch runs its own till, stock and staff. You see combined revenue, expenses and profit across all locations from one screen.
Retail inventory management
For the retail side of the salon, Vendra handles the full inventory cycle. You raise purchase orders to your product suppliers — hair care distributors, nail supply wholesalers, beauty product importers. When the order arrives you receive it against the PO, updating stock counts and creating the supplier bill. Selling a product at the POS automatically deducts from stock. If you run out of a fast-moving shampoo between orders, the reorder report flags it before you are caught short.
You can also see which retail products are selling and which are sitting on the shelf. The slow-moving product report shows items that have not moved in 30, 60 or 90 days — useful for deciding what to discount or discontinue.
Payroll: fixed salary and commission
Salon staff are often paid on a combination of fixed salary and commission based on services delivered or products sold. Vendra's payroll module supports both. You configure each employee's contract — base salary, commission rate, payment frequency. The sales reports provide the commission data. The payroll run calculates gross pay, applies the statutory deductions that apply in your country (income tax, social security, pension contributions), and produces a payslip for each staff member.
Payroll entries post to the accounts automatically. Staff costs flow through to the profit and loss without any manual journal entries.
Accounting: automatic and always current
Every transaction in Vendra — every service billed, every product sold, every expense recorded, every payroll run — creates the correct accounting entries automatically. There is no separate bookkeeping software to maintain and no monthly export to reconcile. Your profit and loss, balance sheet and daily revenue summary are always up to date.
Tax configuration handles VAT, GST and sales tax based on your location. If you operate in multiple countries, each company entity can have its own tax rules. Vendra supports tax compliance across over 90 countries out of the box.
What plan do I need?
Most salons and barbershops run comfortably on the Pro plan at $27/month. This includes the full POS, service products, retail inventory, customer records, expense management, payroll and complete double-entry accounting. The Pro Plus plan at $50/month adds multi-branch management. Both plans are cloud-based — no server, no installation, and accessible from any device on any internet connection worldwide.