Moving from a register or Excel to salon software in one afternoon

Moving from a register or Excel to salon software takes one quiet afternoon if you do it in the right order: put your service menu in (from a spreadsheet if you have one), add your staff with their commission, carry over any client money you hold or are owed, and then let clients come in one by one as you bill them. You don’t need to type in every client from the register. Run the old book alongside for a few days, compare the totals each night, and stop once they match.

Before you start

Pick a quiet afternoon, ideally a weekday, and gather:

• Your service menu with prices and roughly how long each takes.
• Your staff list: names, mobile numbers, roles and commission percentages.
• The money pages of the register: clients who paid in advance, and clients who owe you (udhaar).
• Your GSTIN and business address, if you are registered for GST.
• Your UPI ID for the payment QR.

If you are still deciding which software, choosing a salon POS and registers and Excel compared will help.

The afternoon, step by step

The menu: import it from Excel

If your prices are already in Excel, don’t retype them. Use a simple sheet with a row per service: category, service name, price, duration in minutes, and who it’s for (men, women or everyone). Check it before you import:

• One service per row, no merged cells.
• Prices as plain numbers (“₹1,200” is usually fine; “1200/1500” is not).
• Times in 5-minute steps.
• No service listed twice in the same category.

Decide now whether your prices include GST. Most salons quote prices with GST included. See GST on salon services.

This is also a good moment to tidy the menu. Registers collect odd lines over the years: “Haircut (new)”, “Haircut special”, three spellings of threading. Keep one line per real service, with its real time, and put add-ons like a hair mask as their own short services. A clean menu makes billing faster and reports clearer from the first day.

Products you sell

Add the retail products you actually sell, with their price and the GST rate your CA confirms. Then enter what’s on the shelf today as your opening stock. Back-bar products can wait a week; get billing right first. When you’re ready, stock control for salons explains the rest.

Staff and commission

Add each person with their mobile number and role: owner, manager, reception or stylist. Give each stylist their commission percentage, worked on prices before GST and after discounts. If your register did it differently, for example on the full price, tell the team before the first payday so the new number isn’t a shock. How to work out stylist commission has worked examples.

Carry over wallet money and dues

This is the one part of the register that must come across properly. A client who paid ₹2,000 in advance expects to see ₹2,000. A client who owes ₹500 should be asked for it.

1. List every client with money held or owed, with their mobile number.
2. Add each as a client, then set their balance, with a reason such as “From old register, page 14”.
3. Check the total against the register: money held, and money owed.

Old packages or memberships bought in the register need a decision. The simplest is to honour them from the register until they run out, with a note on the client’s profile, and sell new ones in the software.

Clients: add them as they come

You don’t need to type 2,000 names from old registers. Most of them won’t come back this month anyway. Add each client the first time you bill them: their mobile number and name take seconds at the till, and their history builds from that day. Within a few weeks your regulars are all in.

A sign-up tablet at the desk, where clients type their own name, number and birthday while they wait, speeds this up.

Ask before you mark anyone as happy to get offers. A client who gave their number for a receipt didn’t agree to promotions. Note allergies and colour formulas the first time you see them; those are the details clients love you for remembering.

The first week

Habits matter more than settings. For the first seven days:

• Every bill in the software, including cash and walk-ins, with the right stylist on each service.
• Count the drawer every evening and compare it with what the software says should be there. See the cash tally.
• Book the next visit before the client leaves, where it makes sense.
• Ask the team what’s slow at the end of each day, and fix one thing at a time.

Don’t make practice bills on your real till. Invoice numbers can’t be skipped or deleted, so a test bill stays in your records as a cancelled bill. Practise on a demo instead.

Run both for a few days

For the first three to five days, keep writing the day’s total in the old register too. Each night, compare: number of bills, cash, UPI and card. When three days in a row match, put the register away. Keep it somewhere safe for old client details and past dues.

Moving to Frizzi

In Frizzi the owner imports the service menu from Excel or CSV (services only; products are added by hand). You see a preview of what will be added, updated or skipped before anything changes. Staff get their roles and a commission percentage on every plan. Owners carry over wallet balances and dues with “Correct”, with a reason. There’s no client import yet, so clients are added as they come, or on the self sign-up tablet. Practise first on the demo, then start with 35 days of Pro free, no card (see pricing). See the till and client records.

Questions