What should a salon POS system do?

Most salon owners never shop for a POS system on its own. It arrives as the till inside whatever booking system they picked, and they find out what it can't do on a Saturday afternoon, with a client at the desk holding a gift voucher and a deposit receipt.

We make Daviana, and its till is one of the systems this checklist describes, so we are not neutral. The checklist itself applies to any salon till or EPOS, and where a standalone option is the better choice we say so.

What is a salon POS system?

POS stands for point of sale: the place, and the software, where a sale is rung up and paid. EPOS, electronic point of sale, means the same thing in the UK. In a shop it is a till and a barcode scanner. A salon is different, because most of what it sells is time that was booked in advance.

That means the till has to know the booking. Who did the colour, who did the blow-dry, what price was agreed, whether a deposit was paid when the client booked online. A salon POS also has to sell what a shop till sells: retail products, gift vouchers and the odd walk-in.

Do you need a separate POS if your booking system has a till?

Usually not. When the diary lives in one system and payments in another, every bill is typed twice: once as an appointment, once as an amount on the card machine. At the end of the day somebody matches the two by hand, and any mistake shows up later as a till that won't balance or a tip paid to the wrong person.

A separate setup can still make sense. A standalone card reader with its own app is often the cheapest way to take a card, as our guide to salon card machine fees shows. And if your booking system's till can't do something on the checklist below, a separate POS may be the lesser evil. Just count the time spent reconciling as part of its price.

What should a salon POS system do? An 8-point checklist

Take this list to any demo and ask to see each one done, not described.

1. Cash out from the appointment. Open the visit, and the services, the stylists and the prices are already on the bill.
2. Sell without a booking too. Walk-ins and retail-only sales should go through the same till and the same reports.
3. Split the payment. Card, cash with change worked out, gift voucher and a deposit already paid, all on one bill. A good till refuses to close a bill whose parts don't add up, instead of letting the gap slip into the day's takings.
4. Record tips per stylist. Ideally the client chooses the tip on the card reader, and it is credited to the stylist who did the work.
5. Take retail stock off as it sells. If the shelf count only changes at stock take, you can't tell a sale from a loss. Our post on why salon stock goes missing explains why that matters.
6. Keep deposits and refunds in the same record. A no-show deposit, a partial refund or a reopened bill should change the original visit, not create a loose payment somewhere else.
7. Redeem gift vouchers and courses. Look up the voucher, take the balance off, and show what is left. Courses and packages should count down a session the same way.
8. End the day reconciled. Cash you should have against cash counted, and card takings checked against what the card provider actually paid.

Two smaller things are worth asking about: an itemised receipt by email, and whether the till works on the devices you already own.

How should a till handle a real salon bill? A worked example

Here is a Saturday bill that trips up a weak till. Sam does a root colour, Jo does the blow-dry, and Sam sells the client a bottle of bond repair. The client paid a £20 deposit when booking online, has a £50 gift voucher, and adds a £15 tip on the card reader, £10 for Sam and £5 for Jo.

Three payments, two stylists, one product and a tip, all on one visit. When the till gets it right, Sam is credited with £78 of services, £29 of retail and £10 in tips; Jo with £42 of services and £5 in tips. The voucher shows £0 left, the deposit is used up rather than left hanging, and one bottle comes off the retail count. Nobody touches it again at the end of the day.

Now run it on your own till. Take a real busy-day bill with the most payment types you see, and ring it up. Then time how long the end-of-day match takes. If it is 15 minutes a day, six days a week, that is about 6.5 hours a month. At £14 an hour, put in your own rate, that is roughly £91 a month, or £1,092 a year, spent checking the till against the diary.

How much does a salon POS system cost in the UK?

A salon POS costs you in three places:

• The software. In most salon systems the till comes inside the booking system subscription rather than as a separate charge. Our guide to how much salon software costs in the UK works out a full year for the main UK systems.
• Card fees. On the UK pricing pages we checked on 15 October 2026, published in-person rates ran from 0.99% to 1.75% of each payment, some with 5p to 20p on top. That is usually more than the software itself on a busy salon's takings.
• The card reader. Bought readers cost from £19 to £229 plus VAT on the same pages. Ask whether yours is bought, rented or tied to a contract.

For Daviana, the till is part of Daviana Diary: £25 a month including VAT for one person, £45 for two or three, £80 for four to eight and £120 for nine or more, with no commission on bookings and no minimum term. Card payments go through Stripe on a Stripe card reader; ask us for the current card rate. Every product is on our pricing page.

What should you ask before you choose one?

• Which card reader does it use, and do I buy it? Get the in-person and online card rates in writing.
• Can staff take payment on a phone? Some systems offer tap to pay on a phone. Daviana doesn't yet; it uses a Stripe card reader at the desk.
• What happens if a split payment doesn't add up? Ask them to show you, not tell you.
• How are tips recorded and paid out? Per stylist, and through payroll or straight to the stylist?
• Can I see each stylist's services, retail and tips for the month? That is what commission is worked out from. Our guide to salon commission structures shows the sums.
• Can I take my sales history with me if I leave? Our 12 questions to ask before switching salon software covers the rest of what to get in writing.

The Daviana till works the way this checklist describes. It cashes out against the appointment, so services, retail, tips and the payment type land on one bill attributed to each stylist. It splits payments across card, cash, gift vouchers and deposits, takes the tip on the reader for each stylist, takes retail stock off as it sells, and checks each night what Stripe paid against what the till recorded. It is part of our salon booking system and POS, not a separate box, and drinks ordered through Daviana Bar post to the same bill.

Questions salon owners ask