Business Software Solutions

©2003-2010
All rights reserved.

Our Little Secret Corp.
307-1755 Robson St.
Vancouver BC
V6G 3B7
Phone: 604-468-2157
Fax: 604-464-2101

Internet based back office (remote salon management) (Live Demo)

Monitor and manage your salons from anywhere. SuperSalon has the most advanced Internet back-office available. Access all sales data, customer data, payroll data, inventory data, etc. from anywhere, anytime (secure) via the Internet back office. Give access to partners, managers, bookkeepers, etc. View daily, weekly and monthly reports including ?Franchise specific,? reporting.
Remote Management: Its two-way functionality not only gives you access to all data, it allows you to make salon level changes from anywhere you have Internet access
Synchronizing makes system-wide changes a breeze. Make any change you wish to products, discounts, services, coupons, permissions& passwords, etc. from home. Changes can be made to one store or synchronized to multiple stores. You can even Auto-Propagate employees and customers to multiple shops and message between office and stores. A true Internet based management system. No second party communication software (PC Anywhere®, etc.) required. When you access and manipulate the store POS systems, it is invisible to users at the store.
Marketing: Download customer lists and emails for direct marketing. Filter results by a variety of criteria. Export directly into MS Office. If a stylist quits, mail a coupon to all clients that have requested him in the past.
Auditing: Search for a single transaction or all transactions that meet your search criteria over any date range. Excellent for auditing customer service, theft, etc. Tracks and compares service times to expected service times to find undercharges. Smart time clock auditor finds overstated hours. Reports on various statistics including redos, requests and ticket modifications by stylist. Our customers find theft quickly.
Inventory: Manage your inventory remotely. Generate orders from the store or the back-office, or generate orders at the store level, approve and submit them to vendors from the back office! You can even export orders and print labels. Includes extensive inventory reporting, and supports average costing, and historic inventory levels, values and sales.
SuperSalon does not require an Internet connection to run. The program and data reside on your store computer. Currently used by owners who have over 90 stores with one management office. Requires approximately one Internet dial up account per 5 stores. (About $2 per month per store using highstream.net)
Other Features include a numerous multi-store consolidated reports, a Scheduling Forecaster that projects prior year and trailing week data to create efficient schedules and customizable export features such as a payroll export that works with payroll services. Monitor you account and tech support tickets on your back office. This allows you to see when your stores call us, and how we resolved the problem.
Backups and software updates are all automatic. No backing up to disk, or installing updates via disk.

Design Features

During our development we solicited continuous feedback from Franchisees and independents. We include specific functionality for franchise specific reporting, franchise specific product tracking, and other functionality. Our system can be found in the fastest growing Supercuts/Cost Cutters and Fantastic Sams regions in the USA.
SuperSalon was designed from the ground up for busy walk-in salons. We then integrated a very intelligent & flexible appointment manager. The result is the best system for managing your customer traffic available.
SuperSalon's clean, streamlined Touch-Screen interface hides comprehensive functionality. Also works with mouse or keyboard. Linear flow of input (as opposed to cluttered screens with multiple input options) vastly increases accuracy, speed and ease of use.
Operate SuperSalon as an efficient Check-In / Checkout system, a fast Checkout only system, a comprehensive appointment-based system, or a hybrid system. SuperSalon's hybrid system maintains the benefits of a Check-In system such as maintaining data on wait times, service times, customer visits, etc., while offering the speed of a Check-Out only system.
SuperSalon splits the screen along the bottom so that the Customer Service buttons (New Ticket, Serve Next, etc) remain, even during a ring-out. Stylists do not need to wait for existing customers to be checked-out before serving the next one. Stylists can click the "Serve Next" button, without affecting the current ring-out. After stylist takes next customer, the screen reverts back to existing sale. No bottlenecks!
For very busy salons, easily add additional stations. Use one to check in customers and the second to check them out. Second station is inexpensive.
Integrated credit card processing supports processing via Global®, Nova® and Visanet®
SuperSalon auto-formats all text entries so that customer names, products, services, etc are displayed consistently. Enter SUSAN, or biolage, and formats it to: Susan and Biolage.
Rather than making another standard Windows screen convention, SuperSalon is designed to accommodate touch screens, and it is designed to be used by hair stylists. Our customers love our custom built interface and love having the option of using touch
screens. Our screens are clean, organized and self-explanatory. Customers have installed our software, and have felt they did not need training to get up and running. Of course, with SuperSalon, a mouse works great too!
Customize to your shop. Add quick buttons for your common services, etc.
Options appear when turned on / disappear when turned off.
Status bar shows current wait time, customers waiting, stylists working, etc.
Completely automated backups send data offsite nightly.
Completely automated upgrades.
On screen reports with sort functions, subtotals, and click-for-detail.
Transactions log tracks who, what, where and when.
Requires no second party dial-up, scheduling or remote control software.
Access stores in real time completely invisible to store staff.
SuperSalon uses MySQL database and continually writes data to the hard drive. This means that if your system crashes, it is unlikely that you will lose any data.
In a February 2002 database benchmark tests were performed by Ziff Davis Media Inc., the company behind PC Magazine, eWeek and other well-known publications. They said the MySQL database server stands out as the winner. Microsoft SQL was tested in the same review. The MySQL server is presented as having the overall best performance and salability.. Also, the MySQL server excelled in stability, ease of tuning and connectivity.

Tech Support

Technical support is provided in-house by members of our support and development team. No outsourcing. Support is available 7 days a week. In addition to regular support lines, our developers are available during off-hours via cell phones on a rotating schedule.
Our CPUs include Dell's 3-year on-site warranty.
Request on-line tech support at any time with the touch of a button. We will be notified, and your store's computer will show up on our screens.
All help calls generate support tickets. Owners can review support tickets online to audit our service. For difficult calls, you can always get access to a developer.
Why does our support staff try to please as much as our sales staff? Because they get paid like sales staff. Our tech support staff strives to resolve problems right away. In fact, they get paid a commission on new sales from existing customers, so they want to please! We have successfully built a culture that is focused on customer satisfaction, and we get rave reviews.
We are always happy to improve our product based on your suggestions.
We are happy to import data from other systems, transfer inventory from store to store, etc.

Customer ticket handling

On-screen tickets with color-coded status.
Waiting and servicing columns
Tracks customer wait time and service time and stylist's time between cuts.
Elegantly handles prepaid, multi-tickets, pay at sale, and post-pay situations.
Special functionality for call-ahead, redos, requests and appointment status.
Call ahead functionality tracks if customer is on time or late. Options to keep on-time customers in line and late customers to back of line according to user judgment.
SuperSalon gives you guest history twice during a transaction: When you print a new service ticket, it shows last service details and chemical information to help your stylist know what they are about to work with. SuperSalon also displays the customer’s last visit information directly on the check-out screen. This shows the date, all services and products purchased, and it shows who the stylist was, etc. This helps your staff to ask customers if they need more of the product they last purchased, etc.
Tickets in wait list automatically shrink-to-fit as the number increases.
Flags customers that have written bad checks, and warns not to accept checks on future transactions.
Displays customer cell phone number so customer can be called when stylist is ready.
Tracks stylist average service time and average time between cuts.
Tracks demographics, new/repeat, advertising source, etc.
Save time and improve accuracy with quick send-back, void and undo functions. Fix wrong entries instead of canceling or accepting bad data.
Put tickets (sales) on hold so they can be paid later. This helps if a customer forgets their wallet or if they are part of a group that will not be paid till everyone is done.
Look-n-walk button - click it and it adds information to scheduling helper.
Smart error checking warns about common mistakes.
Tickets left in waiting column too long can be set to automatically void.
Multi-ticket functionality allows you to select tickets and add products and services in any order, while allocating commission to proper employee. This offers excellent flexibility, accuracy and ease of use.
Pop up window shows wait time by stylist. This helps for customers calling about wait time for a request.
SuperSalon gives you guest history twice during a transaction: When you print a new service ticket, it shows last service details and chemical information to help your stylist know what they are about to work with. SuperSalon also displays the customer’s last visit information directly on the check-out screen. This shows the date, all services and products purchased, and it shows who the stylist was, etc. This helps your staff to ask customers if they need more of the product they last purchased, etc.

Appointments

Appointment screen can be disabled for walk in salons.
View list of all daily appointments and status.
Make appointments on traditional calendar view or with intelligent appointment wizard.
Appointments can have multiple services and stylists.
Automatically finds days and times when all requested stylists are available.
Pop-up calendars show color-coded days for availability.
Change the order that the services will be done.
Allows customers to make appointments for next available stylist.
Split sales and commissions among multiple stylists and sales people.
All appointments are editable. Finds duplicate appointments.
Appointments durations are automatically entered based on stylist service times.
Eliminates problems with double booking when a customer changes their appointment.
When customer arrives their wait time is recorded so you can improve your processes.

Products

Auto generates Purchase Orders. Create and review customizable orders. Send via email.
Calculates appropriate stock levels based on desired inventory turnover rates.
Create orders at store level - then approve and send to vendor from office.
Set limits on discounting for any product.
Set taxable / Nontaxable.
Set to commissionable or non-commissionable.
Create Product Groups (buy one, get one / 2 for $20, etc)
Use bar-code scanners
Quick Receive - Adjust - Transfer screen controls all inventory adjustments. RAT reports shows history of all adjustments and sales of any product.
Excellent multilevel product activity reporting. See history of all transactions for any product.
Edit all products screen allows you to quickly update your list. Do multiple edits at ounce.

Services

Add Service options for any service such as long hair charge. (These are prompted and less likely to be forgotten)
Set limits on discounting for any service
Set estimated times for each service (used for theft control, scheduling and wait time calculation)
Add estimated professional product usage for any service. Compare how much was used with how much should have been used. Color, perm, conditioner, etc.
Customizable quick-buttons for common services.
Track and report on "Extra Service" sales by stylist and store. (This measures up-selling)
Service lists are sort-able to put most common used on top.
Categorize by Service type: style, single process, double process, highlight
Quickly add service options. Options (such as long hair charges) can be linked to any service. Stylists don't forget extra charges.

Discounts

Create dollar or percentage based discounts
Create fixed or variable discounts
Create special discounts that dynamically change to result in a predetermined retail. Excellent for sales where all products on a table are a certain price.
Set beginning and ending date ranges for discounts
discounts can be set to affect commission, not affect commission, or partially affect (%). This allows stylist to get paid for value of service even on deep discount promotions or to partial commission such as 50% of regular commission on free services.
Discounts can be set to pay no commission on a product or service when used. This is used for employee and family sales.
Enter coupon codes. This enables you to quickly pull up correct discount when accepting coupons.
Unique "Smart Discounting" maintains accurate profitability tracking by allocating discount proportionately among items when selling 2 for $20 type promos. (The more expensive item gets a larger share of the discount, so both items keep same margin)

Payroll commissions & bonuses

Complete time clock and payroll reporting.
Calculates time, bonuses commissions, tips, etc.
Intelligent time card manager determines when missing entries should be and finds instances where people are clocked in as production, but not doing services.
Definable time card positions can be set as "on or off floor" for
production and bonus tracking.
Tracks and allows bonuses for split-shifts
Can be set to automatically deduct definable break times after a definable hours are worked.
Managers can edit off floor time.
Elegant wizard sets up pay periods, and pay options, commissions & bonuses.
Comprehensive bonus & commission options are summarized on service and product bonus details.
Pay commission on net or gross . Pay on total dollars or dollars per hour.
Pay on tiered levels, or highest level.
With 50 levels, you can enter franchise style Matrix Systems for calculating commissions.
Automatically calculates Fantastic Sams commission matrix.
Tracks regular, overtime, stylist, receptionist, management, banking,
inventory, vacation, sick, etc.
Reports on percent of hours allocated to stylists, receptionists, managers, etc.
When punching out, each employee can print a "mini production report"
shows daily stats and pay-period stats.
Late and absent reporting compares scheduled times to time clock entries.
Warn employees when they forget to clock-in or out, or clock out twice in a row, etc.

Employee Scheduling

Employee scheduling prints schedules and labor graphs.
Copies current schedules forward to save time.
Schedule split shifts and lunches.
Prints two-week schedules for entire shop or one employee.
Reports on late's and absences. Allows for excused absences.
Each employee schedule is shown on their time clock so see when they are scheduled next.
Quick-enter employee schedules while making customer appointments

Customers & Retention

Fully integrated customer loyalty system allows customers to earn points and redeem for purchases, or buy credits for future purchases for Tanning packages, Gift Cards, etc.
Smart Customer-Merge utility combines customer histories when the same customer has more than one entry. (Often caused by misspellings)
Search for customer record using any part of name or phone number.
Quick add customers on the fly.
Client perm cards, color cards, and complete sales histories are maintained.
All customer data & mailing lists - mail merge compatible (Microsoft Office).
Tracks emails for inexpensive marketing.
Comment screen allows special circumstances - rejected by stylist, etc.
Print customer list of all customers who are new within the last X weeks.
If an employee leaves, instantly print a list of all customers that have requested
them in the last 6 months, and send them all retention coupons.
When a customer walks in, instantly view a "quick history" to see when they were
last in, who was their stylist, what service they received.
Enter the zip code and the city and state auto-fill.

Closeout

Handles midday count, end of day count, computed totals, separates cash,
checks, credit - finds errors.
Enter and track midday drops. These can be automatically carried to closeout screen.
Smart helpers show all credit cards that came in for day - simply verify.
Cash and change counting helper transfers totals.
Prints deposit slip correctly filled out with routing number and account
number.
Prints mini closeout summary on the receipt printer.
Handles mid day cash and check drops.

Reporting

Many multi-store consolidated reports.
Comprehensive production, financial, payroll, statistical and auditing reports.
Special space saving "compressed" reports fit on a page.
Special Receipt Printer reports print without a standard printer.
All gross sales, net sales, discounting and average tickets revenue compared by employee.
Gross and net service and products per hour - cuts per hour - average cut time,
time between cuts, etc.
Statistics and percentages are displayed by employee and store totals.
Multi-layered reporting - click on entries to bring up details.
Complete access controls to sensitive information.
Click headers to sort.
Totally customizable royalty reports that email directly to home office.
Print, fax, and email reports.
All reports are always up-to-the-minute.

Inventory

Continually updated from sales, returns, receiving orders, transfers,
inventory counts.
Report on beginning and ending inventory quantities and values for any date range current and past.
Product pricing is dynamic. Keeps track of the different prices you might pay for (or sell) the same product at different times. Provides Cost and Price Averaging.
Complete product management screens and reporting.
Include a special screen that lets you edit multiple products at a time such as all liters, all products of one brand, etc.
Filter and search by brand, vendor, category, price, description, size, etc.
Prints inventory count sheets.
Add products on the fly during customer checkout - excellent if order not
checked in yet.
Inventory management system includes super fast RAT screen for receiving orders, adjusting inventory, transferring products to and from other stores, transfers to back-bar, breakage, returns, etc.
Automatically generates orders (as with everything, this is easily accessed
from central office).
RAT report shows all receive, adjust, transfer transactions - sort and
subtotal. Click on any item for transaction history detail.
Special "Edit Multiple Products" screens allow you to edit entire brand-lines at once.
Special inventory tools find and fix common errors.

Sales, Refunds & Paid-Outs

Integrated Credit Card functionality.
Handles multiple payment types. Even give gift certificates as change.
Displays customer's previous purchases (if this option is enabled).
Interrupt sale to take new customers or change any product, service, discount, etc and go right back to where you left off with sale.
Settings for service and product taxes. Includes options for nontaxable items.
Smart refund screen removes commission from original sales person and sends returned product back to vendor, back to inventory, to back bar or discard
Enter Products or Services 4 Ways! 1) Quick-Enter Number, 2) Use Quick-Pick tool, 3) Use Quick Buttons, 4) Use Search tool.
When a redo occurs, you have option to remove sale from original stylist and credit
to new stylist.
Tip tracking can be turned on or off.
Customizable receipts, loyalty and bounce-back options, phone numbers, etc.
Add products on the fly during checkout if they are not in inventory.
Add or edit products, pricing, services and discounts on the fly during a sale without losing your place in the sale. (Depending on access controls)
Receipt Printer can be set to print special messages like liability waivers, randomized or occasional messages such as “You Win 50% off your next visit!” Receipts and tickets can print automatically or only when requested.
Quickly review and edit prior sales. A record of all edits is maintained.
Sell a gift certificate as nontaxable, noncommissioned item and pay commissions and taxes when redeemed, or split commission between original sales person and person who provided services or product sales.
Gift certificates are handled seamlessly. Includes option to track serial numbers. Tracks who sold, who did service, etc.
Redeem Gift Certificates with special payment type.
Track coupon numbers.
Paid-outs functions for banking, pay to vendors, etc.
Add "Do not accept check" flag for customers.
Add tax-exempt status for customers.
Quick Cash keys speed up check-out.

Setup

Customizable setup for cash drawers, receipt printers, pole displays, credit card readers, barcode scanners and other
peripherals.
Customizable setup for walk-in salon or appointment based salon.
Customizable sales screen and service buttons.
Hide screens that you do not use.
Tip tracking can be turned on or off.

Audits and theft controls

Outstanding tools for analyzing data to find theft and opportunities for
improvement. Find when services are done but not entered. Find when services are undercharged. Find employees generating redos. Find who is closing when the till is short. Find who is cheating the time clock. Find who is trying to inflate their productivity numbers artificially. See who is showing up late and more;
Cleanest system for access control (permissions) available.
Pull up all daily transactions instantly - view details, edit, etc. view any date range.
Search for any transactions, for any date range, for any employee, customer, transaction type, payment type, etc. View all transaction details. Edit prior transactions and a record is maintained of the original.
Options to track who is entering transactions for complete accountability.
Once a customer ticket is made, it cannot be deleted. Voids are tracked by person and reason. Audit report shows any employee that skews high on voids or edits.
The conversion play is one of the most common forms of theft. With SuperSalon it is difficult for employees to undercharge for services and keep excess money. SuperSalon tracks time of each service. Therefore if an employee does a style (or other full service) but only charges for a haircut, it will be flagged as a haircut that took too long. Employees with a high number of these are candidates for more training or observation.
Time card auditor finds when employees are on the clock but not working. Employees sometimes hangout on the clock, have coworkers punch them out, leave, and then return to punch out etc.
Any change to existing sales is tracked, and a record of the change is made. Employees cannot retroactively change a service to increase the change that they can pocket.
Employees sometimes use discounting to artificially raise the amount of change that they can pocket. SuperSalon audits all discounting and compares all employees.
Employees are often paid bonuses for productivity. Productivity can be artificially increased by clocking-in as inventory or other off-the-floor positions, but continuing to do services. This allows employees to get paid for all of their hours, but show higher dollars per hour. SuperSalon finds these occasions.
Access to the till is continually logged. During all transactions including paid-outs, SuperSalon continually logs who is accessing the till for any reason. Password protection can be enabled for any type of access.
Service gaps are easily identified. This helps keep employees from doing freebies without ever adding a ticket.
Percentages of each service, each discounts, redos, voids, etc are compared for all employees. Employees that skew high in any area are noteworthy.
List details of all transactions that a specific employee was involved in. list all transactions that involved a specific receptionist and stylist. List all transactions by a specific employee that were voided or edited.
Wait times and productivity are tracked by day-part. This helps manager schedule appropriately to best accommodate customer flow. Salons often have too many stylists on the clock when it is slow, and not enough when it is busy.
All productivity information is available in various comparative reports. Comparing productivity of employees within a store or stores within a region helps owner establish reasonable expectations, and helps identify opportunities for improvement such as employees that need quality training because they are getting too many redos, employees that need speed training because they are too slow, employees that are getting redos or are slow on specific services, employees that are not trading up to higher services, employees that are not selling products commensurate to their service sales, employees that are discounting too much, etc
Time clock Audits clearly show all late's and absences by employee. This can be incorporated into bonus plans or evaluations.
Excellent access control gives owner complete control over who gets access to what.

Other

We can make proprietary reporting and functionality for your company's version
Training mode. On screen help and documentation.
Multilingual Support (toggle between English and Spanish on sales screens)
Network capable.
Operate multiple computers sharing one database in busy stores.
Includes required weekly and monthly franchise reports. We continually improve the software as we use it in our own stores.
Interface with self-explanatory features require almost no training.
Frequent, incremental, compartmentalized upgrades reduce bugs and increase responsiveness.
Special management utilities allow users to move sales from one stylist name to another (for a date range) to repair mis-allocations.

Pricing

We have payment plans for purchase or subscription. $75 per month covers POs system, Complete back office access, support and upgrades.
We offer flexible subscription plans
Our technical support plans offer excellent value.
We offer a complete line of hardware at competitive prices.

Existing Customers

We are currently installed in many Supercuts, Cost cutters and Fantastic Sam's. Including the #1 Supercuts in the US and the #1 Cost Cutters in the US.
Installed in Supercuts and Cost Cutters in 20 states and Fantastic Sams in 9 States in 2003 alone.
SuperSalon is used by some of the biggest & fastest growing franchisees in the US.
We are installed in salons with multiple clients on a network.
In our sister company, we have developed software for Fortune 500 companies, and the publishers of PC magazine awarded us 5 stars for the fist program we developed.