For independent salons + barbershops.
Salon bookkeeping that splits service, retail, and booth rent.
Service revenue and retail product revenue post to separate accounts — sales tax treatment differs by state and the split matters at remittance. Booth-rent collections track as their own income stream. Commission stylists' totals roll up clean for W-2 or 1099 at year-end.
No card required · $15/mo after trial · 30-day money-back
Service-vs-product split
Service revenue and retail product revenue have very different margins. PlainBooks separates them in the deposit feed so you can see the real margin on the retail shelf — not the rolled-up Square number.
Booth-rent reliability
If you rent chairs, $200–$400/week per chair is supposed to land like clockwork. PlainBooks tallies it weekly so a renter who is slipping shows up before the lease misses a beat.
Slow-month heads-up
January is brutal. August is quiet. Wedding season May–September pays for it. PlainBooks shows the date the bank balance gets thin so you can run a promotion in late November, not in mid-January when the rent has already cleared.
Where the books get messy
The week before Christmas you book 50 services and sell out of styling cream. Square deposits land daily, net of processing. Three booth renters wire you $300 a week each. Commission stylists run on a 60/40 split that needs to land on the right paystubs. The first week of January hits — walk-ins drop, two booked clients reschedule. Then the CosmoProf order on Net-30 comes due. Lease auto-debits the 1st.
The books need to split service revenue from retail product revenue (different margins, different sales tax treatment), commission payouts from booth-rent collections (different tax forms), and product purchases from professional supplies.
What PlainBooks does
PlainBooks gives you the books — chart of accounts shaped for an independent salon or barbershop, the journal where each Square / Fresha / Vagaro deposit, professional-supply order, booth-rent collection, lease payment, and payroll run writes a balanced entry, and a period close that locks each month.
Service revenue and retail product revenue post to separate accounts. The retail side is sales-taxable in most states and the service side may or may not be (state-dependent) — PlainBooks splits it so the remittance check is honest. Booth-rent collections post to Booth Rental Income — a separate revenue stream that has its own state tax treatment.
Commission payouts to stylists run through payroll as W-2 if they're employees, or via 1099-NEC at year-end if they're contractors. Either path produces accurate per-stylist totals.
When the month closes
Close the period and PlainBooks generates the closing entries. The monthly PDF package — Trial Balance, P&L (service revenue, retail revenue, booth rent each as separate lines), Balance Sheet (sales-tax payable + AP visible), GL detail, AR aging, 1099 summary for contractor stylists — comes out in one file.
PlainBooks does not run your booking, take payments at the chair, or schedule stylists. Vagaro, Fresha, GlossGenius, Booksy, Square handle those. If a refund or no-show fee lands late, reopen the period, fix the entries, re-close.
Bills you can't afford to forget
PlainBooks puts each one on the same calendar as your real bank balance, so you see the collision before it happens.
- RentMonthly, the 1st$1,200–$3,500
- Professional products (CosmoProf, SalonCentric)Biweekly, net 30$500–$1,600/mo
- Booking + POS software (Square, Fresha, Vagaro)Monthly$25–$90
- Payroll (if commission stylists)Biweekly$2,000–$5,000
- Card processing feesDaily, at settlement$100–$250/mo
- Liability insurance + workers compMonthly$150–$400
The booth-rent reliability question
Three chairs at $300/week each is $3,600/month landing the same day every week. That number is supposed to be as reliable as the rent. PlainBooks tallies it weekly and flags the week a renter went short — not when you do the books in February and realize one chair was light for two months.
What PlainBooks doesn't do
Honest about scope. If you need any of these, you need different software.
- Run your booking — Vagaro, Fresha, GlossGenius, Booksy
- Take service payments at the chair — that's your POS
- Schedule stylists or send reminders — same
- Tell you what to charge. Your menu is yours. PlainBooks just shows whether the math works at the prices you set.
Ready to see your cash position?
$15/month or $150/year (two months free). 14-day free trial. No card required.
Start your free trialCommon questions
- Does PlainBooks work for salon / barbershop?
- Yes. PlainBooks is general-ledger bookkeeping software — workspaces, chart of accounts, journal entries, period close, bank reconciliation, the full report set (Trial Balance, P&L, Balance Sheet, GL detail, AR aging, AP aging, 1099 summary). The salon / barbershop-specific copy on this page describes the accounts and bills that matter most in this vertical.
- What does it cost?
- $15/month or $150/year when signups open. One price, all features, no tiers. Signups aren't open yet — leave your email on the home page and we'll send one note when launch happens.
- Do I need to connect a bank account?
- No. PlainBooks does not ingest bank feeds. You post journal entries directly (and for trucking workspaces, trips and state-mileage entries write the underlying entries automatically). If you want bank-fed cash visibility, that's a different category of tool.
- What about cash-flow forecasting?
- On the roadmap, not in the current build. PlainBooks today shows what your books say — current balances, what's open in AR and AP, what's posted, what's pending close. We don't promise features that aren't built.