Salon opening and closing checklists that actually get used
A daily SOP for opening, closing and cash handling — short enough that staff will follow it, specific enough to be worth following.
Most salon SOPs fail because they are too long. A forty-point checklist gets ticked without being read within a week. These are deliberately short.
Opening — 15 minutes
- Unlock, lights, air conditioning, music at a level you can talk over
- Check the day's bookings — note anything long, technical or a first visit
- Confirm every stylist rostered is in, and act now if someone is not
- Towels: enough clean for the day's bookings, not just for the morning
- Stations wiped, tools sanitised, colour bar restocked
- Float in the till, counted and recorded
- Wash units: hot water actually hot, drainage running
- Front of shop and entrance clean — it is the first thing anyone sees
During the day — the two that matter
- Bill at the chair, not later. Bills written up at the end of the day are the ones that go missing and the ones that get the stylist wrong.
- Rebook at the till. Every client, every time. One sentence.
Closing — 20 minutes
- Last client out, doors locked
- Cash count against the day's cash figure — not against total revenue. Cash, separately from UPI and card.
- Record the variance if there is one. A recorded ₹50 gap is information; an unrecorded one is a habit.
- Float set aside for tomorrow, the rest secured or banked
- Stations cleaned, tools sanitised and put away
- Towels in to wash, dry ones stocked for the morning
- Note anything low on stock — do not rely on remembering
- Tomorrow's bookings glanced at, so the morning holds no surprises
- Appliances off at the socket, water off, lights, alarm, lock
Why the cash count is against the cash figure
This is the step most salons get subtly wrong. If your closing screen shows total revenue, you cannot count against it — a chunk of that was UPI and card and never entered the drawer.
You want a figure that says: cash taken today, ₹8,400. Then you count. Then the two numbers agree or they do not, and either way you have learned something.
Counting against a mixed total teaches your team that the count never matches, and once they believe that, they stop taking it seriously.
Weekly, on the quietest day
- Stock check against reorder points
- Review the week's numbers with the team — utilisation, rebook rate, retail
- Deep clean the wash area and colour bar
- Check next week's rota is published
Making it stick
Print it. Put it where the work happens, not in a folder. Have the closing count signed by whoever did it — not to police anyone, but because a name on a number makes the number real.
And keep it short. A checklist that takes longer to read than to do will be ignored, and an ignored checklist is worse than none, because it lets you believe something is being checked when it is not.