SalonLife’s “Products & Inventory” feature makes it easy to manage both the products you sell on to clients (retail goods) and the supplies or products that get used up while performing a service (supplies). Below you’ll find instructions on how to tell them apart and later add them to bookings.

Every beauty professional has their own habits when it comes to tracking products for accounting purposes. Some want to track costs very precisely, while others prefer a more general overview. That’s why SalonLife lets you flexibly set a so-called “cost price” (your cost, the purchase price) and a “sale price” (the price the product is sold to the client for) for every product.

Below you’ll find practical tips on how to set up retail products and supplies so that the information you need reaches your bookings as a clear, convenient overview.

Adding a Retail Product

 
1. From the Apps page, open Products & Inventory.
2. Select the green + button to add a new product.
3. Fill in the product name, for example “Shampoo” or “Hair Oil”.
4. Set:    
   • Choose the product type, in this case for example Retail Product.
   • Cost price, your cost for purchasing this product (e.g. €3).
   • Sale price, the price you sell the product to the client for (e.g. €10).
   • Stock quantity (e.g. 10 units).
5. Save your changes.
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For a retail product, the whole idea is that the sale price is higher than your purchase price (cost price). That way, the system automatically calculates the additional sales revenue on the booking, along with your potential profit.
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TIP:
You can add a prefix like “R-” to a retail product’s name (e.g. “R-Shampoo”), so you can tell at a glance that it’s meant for resale.

Adding a Supply Item

Supplies are products that you actually “use up” during a service and don’t earn separate profit on—for example hair dye, wax cartridges, and so on.

 
1. From the Apps page, open Products & Inventory.
2. Click the green + button in the top right corner to add a new product.
3. Write the product name, for example “Hair Dye”.
4. Set:  
   • Add the product type, for example Supply Item.
   • Cost price, the product’s purchase price (e.g. €0.05 per portion).
   • Sale price, which you can set to the same value as the cost price if you’d like (e.g. also €0.05).
5. Save your changes.

This way, the system doesn’t record any extra profit, and instead shows your cost more accurately.

TIP:
You can add a prefix like “S-” to a supply item’s name (e.g. “S-Hair Dye”), so it’s easy to tell in bookings or your product list whether something is a retail product or a supply item.

How Do You Add Products to a Booking?

The easiest way to add products to a booking is to open the specific booking and click the “+ Add” button, then “Products”.

After that:

1. Search for the product you need (for example “Shampoo” or “Hair Dye”).
2. Choose the quantity (how much of the product was used performing this service, or how many units the client bought).
3. If needed, change the price of individual products—for example, if you want to offer a discount for a certain quantity, or set a price different from the cost price.

The system automatically adds the cost or sale amount to the booking’s final price. If you need to adjust the quantity again later, you can change the quantity and product price the same way at any time.

Changing Quantity and Price in a Booking

• Setting the quantity: click the quantity or price on the product’s row in the booking. Enter the new quantity and save.
• Changing the price: Click the price icon. When the lock icon is green, you can set the price freely (for example, if you’re selling several units at once at a lower price). When the lock icon is black, the quantity is automatically multiplied by the product’s original price.

The main difference between a retail product and a supply item comes down to pricing:

• For a retail product, you set the sale price—for all invoices and reports—to the amount the client pays.
• For a supply item, you can set the sale price to match your cost, so the system doesn’t record any unnecessary extra revenue.

The final choice of how to name and categorize your products is up to your own preference. Our recommendation is to use clear labels (“R-” or “S-”) and a pricing model that fits, so your daily workflow stays as smooth as possible.

If you feel it’s more efficient to keep costs and sales in a single category, or organize things some other way, go right ahead and do whatever works best for you! What matters is that your workflow makes sense to you and gives you a clear overview of both product movement and your service costs and revenue.