MANAGEMENT TOOL NEEDED FOR A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

Larry, thank you for newsletters, I appreciate the information I get off your blog. You’ve really helped me to be more profitable. You are certainly an asset for our industry. What I was wondering is how you would answer this question. “What is the most important management tool that a salon owner should have?” I know you’re going to say good financial statements so make that other than good financial statements, “What do you think the most important tool an owner should have?” Clare

Clare, thank you for your kind comments. We are struggling to help the salon industry be successful. It's words like yours that keep us going.

You're right, good financial statements tell you where you’re going. You understand that, so I won’t get into it. Your question is, what’s the second most important? How would you like to have a friend – person that is a genius at booking appointments, can track retail sales by individual, can monitor the frequency of clients, can look at prebooking, has memorized client’s birthdays and important events, and can determine when a client hasn’t been in for a while? Finding someone like that, especially someone who can do that with a smile on their face, is probably an impossible task. Even though we cannot find an individual like that, we can get the same information from our salon software. There is excellent salon software out there that can provide an enormous amount of management information. The key is having the software in place and knowing how to use it.

One of the things we find with most of the software companies is that they are very good at what they do, and as such, they have the ability to prepare numerous reports. The key for salons is finding those reports that give them the information they need and then using those reports. As part of our services to our clients, we pull many of those reports and do some summaries so that we can spot trends. Trends are very important. If you can see an upward or downward trend, you can correct or capitalize on those situations.

Thank you for your inquiry. I hope this helps you.

Larry Kopsa CPA

SALON SOFTWARE

If you are looking at installing or changing salon software, there is a very interesting article you should look at in the May 2008 issue of Modern Salon. In this two page article, they feature SalonBiz, Salon Transcripts, and Millennium Software by Harms. We have clients that use all three of these software programs, and they are all excellent.

Additionally, we have on file a comparison from an earlier magazine on the various software programs. If you are interested, let me know, and I would be glad to send you a copy.

Larry Kopsa CPA

SALON SOFTWARE

If you are looking at installing or changing salon software, there is a very interesting article you should look at in the May 2008 issue of Modern Salon. In this two page article, they feature SalonBiz, Salon Transcripts, and Millennium Software by Harms. We have clients that use all three of these software programs, and they are all excellent.

Also, we have on file a comparison from an earlier magazine on the various software programs. If you are interested, let me know, and I would be glad to email you the information.

Larry Kopsa CPA

ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE FOR SALONS

Larry, thank you for your blog. It is nice to have an expert that answers questions. I am now renting a booth. Is there software that you recommend to help me organize my books? Maria

Maria, thanks for your kind comments. The program I feel is best for not only booth renters, but also for salons and personal, is QuickBooks. QuickBooks is very easy software to use. We have 99% of our clients on QuickBooks without any real problems.

If you are interested in training, we do a QuickBooks training program over the phone for our clients. To train you we use software so that you can sit at your computer and see how we are entering data etc. We can then watch you enter information so that we know that you are comfortable with the program. We have trained like this hundreds of times and it works very well.

The cost of this program is $400 until November 15, 2007. Between November 15 and April 15 the cost of the training is $600. With this training, one of our staff goes through with you, by phone, all of the details, helps you set up the chart of accounts, shows you how to use the check register, and is available for any follow up questions you might have.

This training is slightly more expensive than QuickBooks classes that are offered but our classes are one on one and are customized just for your business. We have found that the other classes can be confusing in that they are teaching many things, such as inventory and accounts receivable that you do not need to know.

If you are interested in some assistance, please let Amanda at our office know. Our telephone number is 1-800-975-4829, Amanda’s email address is ahansen@kopsaotte.com. As with all of our work we guarantee that you will not only be satisfied, but extremely satisfied with our services or receive your money back.

Larry Kopsa CPA