Prepaid packages for beauty, laser and Pilates: managing them without a notebook

The problem with the notebook

Beauty salons, laser clinics and Pilates studios sell series. A customer buys ten facials, a client buys a class pass, someone starts a series of laser treatments. From that moment, someone has to count.

Usually it is a notebook by the register, a spreadsheet, or a paper punch card the customer keeps. Each of them breaks at the same point: on a busy day. The therapist forgot to mark it, the customer does not remember if this is the sixth or the seventh treatment, and nobody wants to argue with a good customer about one treatment.

• Arguments about how many treatments were already used.
• A package marked as paid, but nobody checked at the register.
• Several therapists or instructors, and each one records it a little differently.
• A customer who finished a package, and nobody noticed to offer her a new one.

How a treatment card in the wallet works

Shortip has two main kinds of card: a punch card with a reward, or a package paid in advance that counts down. With a package, each visit takes off one unit.

1. The customer pays you for the package, at your register, as she does today.
2. You confirm in the portal that she paid, and the package opens on her card.
3. After each treatment, the therapist scans the card with her phone and taps the button.
4. The card in the wallet updates, and the customer sees how many treatments are left.

The scan only identifies. The treatment is recorded only when the staff member taps. So no unit is taken off because of a double scan or a phone scanned by mistake.

What the customer sees

The card is saved in the phone's wallet, on Android and on iPhone. It updates after every treatment, and each customer also has her own page with all her visits. When she asks "How many do I have left?", the answer is already on her phone, and nobody needs to open a notebook.

How to set up a package that does not cause arguments

The card counts correctly, but it counts what you set. Most arguments start with an unclear rule, not with the counting. A few things worth deciding before you open the first package:

• What counts as one unit. One treatment? One class? And if a customer gets both eyebrows and upper lip in the same visit, is that one unit or two?
• What happens when an appointment is cancelled at the last minute. This is your business's policy, and it should be written down so the whole team says the same thing.
• Whether the package is personal, or can be shared with a family member. Whatever you decide, say it already at the sale.
• Who explains the package to the customer. It is best if the person who sells it also shows the customer where she can see how many are left.

A rule of thumb: if you need more than one sentence to explain what counts as a treatment, the rule is too complicated. Simplify it before it reaches the front desk.

Why the package opens only after you confirm payment

A prepaid package is money paid for a service that has not been given yet. If it opens before someone checked that the money arrived, a debt is created that nobody knows about.

So the rule in Shortip is simple: a package opens only when you confirm that the customer paid. Joining the club does not open a package, a regular visit does not open a package, and moving visits from a paper punch card does not open a package either. Only your approval.

A staff member who opens a package: permission twice

In many businesses the owner is not always at the front desk. Sometimes it is convenient for a staff member to open a package for a customer who just paid. On the other hand, this is exactly the point where a mistake costs money.

The solution is two permissions. A staff member opens a package only if you allowed it both for the whole business and for her personally. By default this is off. Your phone, the owner's phone, can always do it.

• A business where only you take money: leave the business switch off, and every package goes through you.
• A business with a front desk manager you trust: turn on the business switch, and allow only her.
• A business with several branches: several branches, and a manager for each branch with their own link. The permission is given to each staff member separately.

Packages that end, and renewal

The best moment to offer a new package is while the customer is still with you, at the second to last treatment. The problem is that with a notebook, nobody sees this in advance.

In the portal you see who is about to finish a package, and you remind them. Shortip does not send the customer a message in your name. The reminder is yours: one sentence at the front desk, while she is already there.

And if a customer finished a package and did not come back? The customer list has a filter for who has not come back. On her page you see all her visits and the dates, and a note that only you see.

A package and a punch card with a reward on the same card

Many businesses sell both series and single treatments. You can keep two punch cards on one card, for example a facial package and a gel polish punch card with a reward. Each one counts separately, and the customer sees both on the same card in the wallet.

If you want to encourage people to join, you can give a few visits as a gift right when they join, on the punch card with the reward. The package itself always opens only after payment.

When something is recorded by mistake

Even without a notebook there are mistakes: a therapist tapped twice, or recorded it for the wrong customer. A visit recorded by mistake is cancelled with a reason, and you see who cancelled it.

On the today page you see what happened, by staff member. Many visits for one customer in one day, or cancellations by one staff member, are flagged for you under "Worth a look". That does not mean someone did something wrong. It means it is worth a look.

Moving from the notebook, without a mess

1. Set a start date. From that day, every new package opens on the card.
2. Packages already open in the notebook stay in the notebook until they end. That way no customer needs to work out how many treatments she has left.
3. Offer every customer to join when she is at the front desk. She scans, types a phone number and gets a code, and there is no app to download.
4. Decide who may open a package, and turn on the permissions only for those who need them.
5. Send each therapist or instructor an invitation on WhatsApp, and they install the scanner.
6. After a month, open the list of packages about to end, and check that the notebook is already empty.

How much it costs

The price is set in one price list, and this is today's price:

Frequently asked questions