Top Tips on managing your professional stock
Welcome to Shortcuts Top Tips. Each month we send out some top tips that are business focused and offer advice on what salons can do to improve their bottom lines. So sit back and read on...

How can salons manage their professional stock usage more effectively? Professional stock can often be hard to track and it can become a costly area for the business if not closely managed. Many different issues can soon become common place:

• Missing stock
• Insufficient stock of specific lines
• Stock wastage

If salons and spas can manage their professional stock more effectively then they will reduce wastage and improve their cash flow, which in present circumstances is a welcome relief!

There can be nothing more frustrating, for a salon owner, than seeing discarded colour tubes that are only half used or not having the most popular treatment as you have run out of stock.

Managing professional stock usage is all about processes. Having the correct procedures in place that your staff follow will make managing your professional stock so much easier. Below are some ideas on what salons can do to ensure that costs are controlled and sufficient stock is always on hand.

How much do you use? – How much stock do you use on the salon floor? Salons should be using less than 10% of their overall stock on the salon floor.

Get a stock bin – this may sound obvious but there should be a stock bin where everyone gets rid of empty tubes. If there is only one place where they are discarded, then this makes managing your usage so much easier, as you can count what you are using each day.

Keep your tubes in a box – once a tube is empty, place back in its box and put in the stock bin. Therefore there should be only one open box with a tube visible at any point.

Keep records – If you use Shortcuts you should scan all stock out on a daily basis at the point of sale using “Business” as the client record that the stock is attributed to. If you use a paper based records then ensure that you log all outgoing professional stock to the business.

Mark retail stock – Once professional products are scanned out to “Business” the physical bar code on the product should be marked through with a black marker pen or use a salon sticker inserted over the barcode. This then indicates this item has been accounted for and cannot be resold!
Once empty, the staff should then return the product to the stock bin as a security measure. The manager will already know this has been allocated and will then discard. Visual audits can easily be carried out on the staff stations to ensure the barcode is marked and the proper procedure has been followed.

Get permission – All stock for salon use should be scanned out by the manager as requested by staff. This way, with only one person managing the process, helps ensure that procedures are followed.

By following these steps salons and spas should be able to control their stock usage and their cash flow. This will help reduce wastage and shrinkage

Other suggestions include:

Colour Optics – make sure your salon only uses as much as it needs for colour. The colour optics give a whole new meaning to optics, rather than full of gin or rum the colour optics are full of colour! This way you know how much colour you use for each and every client, and not a drop is wasted!

A stock wastage glass jar – This is something that is great to use only once in a while (for health and safety reasons) when you think there is too much waste! At the end of the chosen day go through the empty tubes and containers and pour and scrape the remnants in to a glass jar. This will clearly demonstrate how much is being wasted, and in turn encourages the staff to get more out of each tube.

Claire Smith, co-owner of the Colour Room shares her top tip on how salons can stay on top of managing their professional stock use!

Remember if you have Shortcuts Software you can look up the Professional Stock Usage Report in Shortcuts, this will give you all the facts and figures so you can make sure what you are using is in line with your services in the salon!