How to write a hair and beauty professional invoice

What goes on a hair and beauty professional invoice

Six things, in the order they belong on the page. The invoice generator opens a hair and beauty document with the lines already in place, so most of this is checking rather than typing.

1. List each service separately. Cut, color, treatment. One line per thing done, at its own price.
2. Separate retail products from services. Goods sold and services performed are different lines and often different tax treatment.
3. Show the deposit and when it was taken. Bridal and package work is deposit-led and clients want to see it applied.
4. Bill travel for mobile work. Getting to a client is time and cost, and it is why mobile pricing differs.
5. For bridal, list every person and every service. Six people and eleven services is a document. Bridal package is not.
6. State the cancellation and no-show terms. A missed appointment is a lost slot that cannot be resold.

The lines a hair and beauty professional invoice usually carries

The generator opens with these lines when you pick Hair and beauty. The figures are placeholders to type over, not a going rate.

Add, rename, reorder or delete any line, and set tax per line where it applies. Priced as they open, that comes to $580 before tax.

How to write a salon invoice, step by step

1. List the services one by one. Open the hair and beauty invoice and enter each service as its own line: cut and style, color, the bridal package. One line for a whole appointment is the one clients query.
2. Keep products off the service lines. Products used or taken home are a separate line, so the client can see what the service cost and what the retail cost.
3. For bridal work, list every person. The bride, the bridesmaids and the mother of the bride each with their service and time. A party of eight on one line is impossible to check.
4. Add travel on mobile bookings. An early start at the venue and the drive there go on as their own line. It is the cost mobile work most often leaves out.
5. Deduct the deposit, then send. Show the deposit with the date it was taken. Set 7 days for event bookings and state the cancellation terms in the notes.

Salon invoice example, filled in

A bride's cut, color and bridal package, with the products she took home on their own line. The booking and trial dates are at the top, because bridal invoices are paid weeks after the chair is empty.

Subtotal $580, tax $58, total $638. Products at $45 sit apart from the three service lines, so the client can see what she paid for the look and what she paid to keep it. The note records that the trial was part of the package, which is the question most brides ask.

Bridal and event work, and the invoice for a party of eight

Bridal is the highest-value work in the sector and the most likely to be disputed, because it is booked a year ahead, priced as a package and delivered to a group.

Write it as a schedule. Each person named or numbered, each service against them, the time of the trial and the time on the day, travel, and any early start supplement. A bride reading eight named lines can see exactly what she is buying, where bridal package for eight is a number she has to accept.

Include the trial as its own line whether or not it is chargeable, and state the position if it is included. Trials are frequently the source of a fee argument precisely because everybody assumed something different about them.

Mobile work, travel and the early start

Mobile pricing exists because getting to a client, carrying equipment and setting up in their space costs time that salon work does not.

Bill travel as its own line, either as a flat call-out or by distance, and add an early start supplement where a booking begins before your normal hours. A five in the morning bridal start is a real premium and it is normal to charge for it.

Say what you bring and what you need. A line stating that the booking assumes access to power and a suitable working area is what prevents a doorstep negotiation on the morning of a wedding.

Packages, courses of treatment and retail

Course-based treatment work is sold as a block and delivered over months, which makes the invoice a record the client will return to.

Show the course, the number of sessions included, the sessions used and the sessions remaining, with any expiry date. That single set of lines prevents almost every dispute about a course, and it also prompts the client to book the sessions they have left.

Keep retail products entirely separate with quantities and unit prices. They are goods rather than services, they may be treated differently for tax, and mixing them into a treatment line makes both harder to reconcile.

Hourly, fixed price or per unit: how hair and beauty professionals price the work

Hair and beauty is priced per service at the chair, which needs no invoice at all. The invoices that matter are the ones for work that is booked ahead and delivered to a group: bridal, mobile, packages and courses. All four go wrong the same way, through vagueness about what was included.

For bridal, write a schedule rather than a package price: each person, each service, the trial, the time on the day, travel and any early start supplement. It is booked a year ahead, and a named list is the only thing either of you will still understand by then.

Working out what to charge

Salon prices depend on your area, your experience and what your chair costs you, so a number from a web page helps nobody. The service price calculator sets a price per service from your own time and rent, and the profit margin calculator checks what retail products actually earn you.

Getting paid once it is sent

Everyday appointments are paid at the chair; bridal and event bookings take a deposit to hold the date and the balance before or on the day. If the due date passes, the late fee calculator works out what your terms allow and the due date calculator sets the new date.

Five dates decide whether a hair and beauty professional gets paid on time, and four of them are set before the work starts.

Mistakes that cost hair and beauty professionals money

• One line for a whole appointment. The client cannot see what each service cost.
• Bridal booked as a package with no schedule. Eight people, one number, and a year to forget what was agreed.
• Travel not charged on mobile work. The entire reason mobile pricing differs, given away.
• Course sessions not tracked on the invoice. Every course ends in a disagreement about how many are left.
• Products mixed into service lines. Goods and services blurred, and harder to reconcile at year end.

Hair and beauty invoice questions

Free hair and beauty professional invoice template

The free hair and beauty professional invoice template opens with the lines above already priced, in any of 44 designs made for the trade, and exports a print-ready PDF with nothing saved to a server. Opening a design needs a free account.

Invoicing guides for related trades

Everything on this site, set up for hair and beauty professionals

The whole toolkit, with the reason each one matters to hair and beauty professionals rather than in general. The four marked links open with hair and beauty already selected.