Most business owners and managers should have a bookkeeping service to keep their expenses and income in order. An uninvolved third party booking service is one of the best ways to keep your numbers together. By hiring a bookkeeping service, you can make sure that your income and expenses are properly accounted for and that you always have updated information when you are looking over your accounts. If you run a beauty salon, bookkeeping can become a little more difficult, especially with more stylists. Here are three ways to make bookkeeping easier when you own a hair salon:

Set standardized prices

If you are a salon owner and you rent booths to other stylists, it is typically allowed for stylists to charge their own prices and rates. Other types of salons will have standard prices for services for everyone in the salon. To make bookkeeping simpler and make sure you are getting the most out of your income, you and your stylists should have similar rates. This will make it clear what service you tend to sell more often. It also allows you to keep walk-in clients in the salon who may have desired an unavailable stylist, as they will be able to afford another stylist. This will keep your salon running as smoothly as possible. 

Don't count tips

Since salons don't run on tips, but at the cost of the service that they provide, tips should be left out of the accounting to pay bills. Although tips are a taxable form of income and need to be reported on taxes, you should not be depending on them to pay the bills. Since tips are optional, there is always the chance that tips could drastically reduce, depending on the economy, meaning that you have to depend on the actual charge for the services to pay bills. Have our bookkeeper place your tips in a separate column when accounting for income. This will give you a clear idea of what you make each month and how much the salon needs to run on. 

Overcalculate for the stylist

Since you will be responsible for providing your own tools such as shampoo, conditioner, flat irons, and more, be sure to set aside a monthly amount to spend on these tools. If possible, you should over calculate the monthly amount that you need for the salon. This will make sure that you can afford your usual products even if the manufacturers raise the prices. This also allows you some wiggle room to try specialty products that could aid in performing more services in your salon. 

Contact a company like Tax Specialists Of Northern Colorado LLC for more information and assistance.