Styling Chairs
Styling Chair: eight units, capacity 1, Exclusive, Required, Hidden. Link it to cuts, colour and blow-dry services. With more stylists than chairs, the chairs — not the staff roster — cap the salon.
Appointments
Every service booking takes one chair for its full duration, including processing time for colour. Eight chairs, eight clients at once.
For an appointment service every booking is its own session: an exclusive unit is taken whole by the booking that reserves it, and a shared unit is filled by other bookings at the same time up to its capacity.
Backwash Basins
Backwash Basin: three units, capacity 1, Shared, Optional. A basin is used for minutes, not the whole appointment, so make it Optional so it never blocks a booking; it is listed for information only.
Group Styling Workshop (Group Class)
The Group Styling Workshop (size 8) is a calendar class linked to the chairs. Scheduling it reserves Chair 1 and each guest takes the next; the chairs it holds are closed to appointments for the workshop's two hours.
Because this is a group class on the calendar, each session reserves one unit of every required, exclusive item when it is scheduled — before anyone books. Attendees are placed on that unit in turn and never pick it; once it is full the next attendee moves to the next free unit (choosing it themselves if the group is Customer Choice). When no unit is free, the session reads as full even if seats remain.
Standalone Hire
On the Styling Chair item open Advanced → Standalone hire, turn on Available for standalone hire and set Block duration 60 minutes, Price per block $300, Time frame 30 minutes, Buffer time - Open 0, Buffer time - Close 15 minutes and Hire hours 10:00–19:00 Monday to Saturday, Sunday Closed. Freelance stylists can then hire a chair by the hour on quiet days. Hires use the same eight chairs as your services, so a hired chair is closed to salon bookings for its blocks.
On the Hire page the stylist picks Styling Chair and a start time; Duration +3 books a four-hour afternoon, the extra blocks shown as Additional time, and the plus button is disabled while the Group Styling Workshop holds the chairs. Hire is paid in full at booking by the price per block — no passes, and the item's ordinary Price does not apply — and needs Equipment hire among your booking types. You can also ask the assistant to change these settings.
Checking Allocations
Open Equipment → Allocations — the first tab — to see who holds each chair. The columns are Equipment, Unit, Customer, Class, Start time, End time and Capacity used; a Session badge marks a unit held for a whole class session. Filter by Class (a colour service, Group Styling Workshop), Equipment (Styling Chair, Backwash Basin), Customer or Date range, or search by equipment, unit or class name or class schedule ID. Use load more or load all for long lists. Chair hires appear here as bookings on the Styling Chair's hidden hire service. You can also ask the assistant to list allocations for a session, class, customer, item, unit or date.
Changing Items and Groups Later
The edits this business makes most often:
- Add a ninth chair — open the item, choose the Units pill and select Add Unit, or enter a new Total units and select Go.
- Take a chair out for a hydraulic repair — in the Units pill set its status to Maintenance with a start date (the end date is optional). It leaves class capacity and standalone hire until it is Active again.
- Change the chair hire price — on the item's edit page; the hire price is Price per block under Advanced → Standalone hire.
Every one of these can also be done by asking the assistant.
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