Notes on running the shop
Pricing, no-shows, staffing and the boring operational things nobody writes about. Ukrainian and English, translated after.
Priced by the square metre, booked with the travel time
A cleaning company sells a size, not an hour. Here is how the client types the area and sees the price, how the travel time stays free after each visit, and how each cleaner’s day is listed in order with the addresses on it.
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Priced by the number of players
An escape room is sold by the team, not by the hour. Here is how a team types its size and sees its price, how the room and the game master are both kept free, and how a deposit holds the hour.
A birthday booked as one private session
A ceramics class sells places one by one; a birthday wants the whole table. Here is how a class is booked whole at its own price, how the cake and the kiln firing go on the bill, and how a family’s places are paid in one go.
The hours that make it onto the invoice
Hourly work leaks between the calendar and the invoice: a call nobody wrote down, a weekend fix billed at the old rate. Here is how logged time becomes a draft invoice with a line for each deal.
A club on memberships, not cash at the door
Cash at the door makes every class a fresh decision for the member. A membership makes coming the default. Here is how a club moves over without losing anyone.
Lanes, instructors and packs: a swimming school’s week on one screen
A swimming lesson needs two things at the same hour — an instructor and a lane — and most diaries only track one. Here is how a school keeps both, and the packs that pay for them.
The deposit that protects a full-day bay
A ceramic coating takes a bay and a detailer for a day. When the client does not come, the day is gone. Here is how to size the deposit, the notice window and the bay so it does not happen twice.
Coating maintenance, booked at checkout
A coating sells its own maintenance — if someone asks at the right moment. The right moment is checkout, with the car looking its best. Here is how to make the ask automatic.
Podology courses that don’t stop after visit two
A course of foot care works only if the client keeps coming. Most courses stop at the second visit, not because the client changed their mind but because nobody booked the third. Here is how to book the whole course at once.
A helpdesk your clients can find
Most small IT firms do not lose clients over a slow fix. They lose them over silence — a request nobody acknowledged. Here is how to give every client one place to ask and see the answer.
Retainers without retyping the invoice
An agency on retainers types the same invoice twelve times a year per client, and eventually forgets one. Here is the path from a proposal to a monthly invoice that is drafted for you.
From booked consultation to paid invoice
A small practice of consultants, lawyers or accountants loses more to the gaps between steps than to any one client. Here is one path from the first enquiry to the invoice that is paid.
Every seat filled before the evening
A workshop with ten places loses most of its margin on the two that stay empty. Here is how a ceramics, candle or cooking studio keeps the room full — and what to do about the people who forget to come.
The certificate season
From late November to mid-February, a workshop studio sells more gift certificates than seats. Here is how to sell them online without a single message, and what happens when they come back in March.
One pipeline from enquiry to the balance invoice
An event business runs on dozens of half-finished conversations: who has paid the deposit, who is waiting for a quote, whose party is on Saturday. Here is how to put all of them on one board.
Weekly lessons, packs and make-ups
A speech therapist’s week is the same children at the same hours, paid in packs, with the occasional missed lesson owed back. Here is how to keep all three without a notebook.
The same hour every week: a music school’s timetable
A music school’s timetable is a grid of rooms, teachers and pupils who come at the same time every week. Here is how to keep the rooms honest, the hour packs exact and the recital full.
A course: seats, prepayment and the model day
A beauty or barber academy sells places, takes money before day one, needs real clients for the model day and hands out a kit. Here is how the four fit together.
From a message to a waybill
A small online shop runs on messages: an order in a chat, a card number for payment, a waybill typed by hand. Here is the same day with one order screen in the middle.
Cash on delivery and returns without a spreadsheet
Cash on delivery and returns are where a small shop loses track of its money. Here is how each parcel’s money and each returned item are accounted for, with a receipt where one is due.
Courses, cancellations and a diary of their own
An osteopathy practice sells hours that cannot be resold at short notice, in courses that only work if the client keeps coming, by practitioners who should see their own clients and no one else’s. Here are the three settings.
Fortnightly visits on one schedule
A small cleaning team lives on regular clients: the same flat every other Thursday, a crew of three for the deep clean, the key under a note only the right person should read. Here is how to run it from one schedule.
The register that grants the make-up
Present, no-show, excused: three marks a teacher makes in seconds decide what a pack loses, what a teacher earns and which absences are made up.
Two children, one parent: who comes and who pays
A family with two children in two groups is one person to bill and two to teach. Here is how to keep them apart where they must be, and together where it saves the parent a question.
Term enrolment without a spreadsheet
A group that meets every Tuesday from September to May is one decision a parent makes once. Here is how to record it once too — and what happens when a lesson is full, a child is away or moves up a level.
WhatsApp from 1 October: what a salon should change
Since 1 October Meta charges for replies inside the 24-hour window. Your reminders are not getting cheaper, but you can change the channel they go out on.
Moving your client base from Altegio in an evening — with an undo
Salons stay on software they dislike because of the client history they are afraid to lose. Here is how the move works, and what it will not do.
A ПРРО for a salon: what you need, and what you do not
A software cash register, what it has to do with your booking system, and the one thing we will not do for you.
What a deposit is actually for (and why 30% is usually wrong)
A deposit is not a payment plan. It is the price of your time if someone does not turn up — which means it should be sized against the slot, not the service.
The 20-minute close: what to check before you lock up
Cash, card, tips, tomorrow’s confirmations and one stock number. In that order.
Commission schemes that do not start arguments
An argument about pay is rarely about the percentage. It is about what the percentage is of, for which period, and who counted it.
The message that stops most no-shows is the second one
Everyone sends a −24 h reminder. The −2 h one is the one that actually recovers the slot.
Your Instagram bio is a booking funnel with one step missing
Why the link matters more than the grid, and what to write above it.
Off-peak pricing without cheapening the brand
Discount the hour, never the service. A worked example from a four-chair salon.
What to take with you when you leave a booking platform
A checklist of the six exports you need, and the one nobody remembers until it is gone.
Move your bookings off paper, WhatsApp and three spreadsheets.
Bring your clients, services and past visits in from a spreadsheet or your old system’s export, with a preview before anything is written — and help in chat, in six languages, whenever you want it. Most studios are live the same day.