Which numbers to check every month: 5 for beauty professionals

01Feeling it was a good month isn’t a number

A full calendar, rushing from morning to night, and at the end of the month there is still less money than it seemed. Or the other way round: the month felt quiet, but you earned more than before. A feeling measures how tired you are, not how the business is doing.

To see that, you don't need an accounting degree or complicated spreadsheets. Five numbers and fifteen minutes once a month are enough. This article covers those five numbers, how to work out each one, a calculator for your own, and what to do when one of them goes down.

02Five numbers that tell you almost everything

1. Average ticket. Revenue divided by the number of visits that happened. It shows how much one client spends on one visit. It goes up when clients choose pricier treatments or add-ons, and down when a lot of time goes to quick, cheap treatments.
2. No-show rate. No-shows divided by all the visits that should have happened. Every percent is a real empty slot that nobody else could take any more.
3. Occupancy.Hours booked divided by hours in your schedule. It is the most honest way to say “I'm very busy” or “I still have room”.
4. Revenue per hour. Revenue divided by every hour in your schedule, booked or empty. This number joins price and occupancy into one: it goes up both when you raise prices and when you fill empty slots.
5. Returning clients.How many of this month's clients had been to you before. New clients are nice, but steady income comes from the ones who come back.

03Put in your own numbers

Take last month and the one before. If your bookings are in a system, the numbers take a couple of minutes to find. If they are in a notebook or in Instagram chats, the first time takes longer, but it already shows how much stays invisible.

What matters most is the direction, not the number itself. Compare yourself with yourself: this month with the last one and, once you have the data, with the same month a year ago. For a nail tech, December and August will never look the same, and that's normal.

04How to read the numbers together

One number on its own rarely says much. Together they show where the problem is:

If occupancy stays high for months and revenue per hour stands still, it is probably time to look at your prices. How to tell clients without an argument is covered in How to tell clients about a price increase. If no-shows are rising, start with A client didn't show up. What it costs you and how a deposit prevents it.

05Example: what the calculator’s numbers show

The calculator already holds an example: one chair, 140 hours in the schedule and about €40 a visit. What do the numbers show?

• Almost the same number of visits, but €150 more revenue, because the average ticket grew.
• Fewer no-shows, down from six clients to four, and occupancy went up.
• A bigger share of returning clients, so new clients are starting to stay.

And still, the four no-shows are money left on the table:

In a month like this, you don't need to change everything. One action for next month is enough, such as a deposit for new clients or a reminder the day before, and a month later you can see whether it worked.

06Numbers that mislead

• The total number of bookings. It includes the cancelled ones and the no-shows. Count the visits that happened.
• Revenue without hours.More money for more hours isn't growth, it is just more work. That is why revenue per hour matters more than total revenue.
• Follower count. It tells you how many people see you, not how many book.
• Comparing yourself with other masters. Another city, other treatments, another schedule. The only fair comparison is with yourself a month ago.
• One bad month. A holiday, an illness or the festive season can spoil any month. It is worth worrying when a number moves the same way two or three months in a row.

0715 minutes on the first working day of the month

Numbers only help if you look at them regularly. Put one repeating appointment with yourself in your calendar, for example on the first Monday of every month, and go through this list:

If the empty slots come from last-minute cancellations, read A client cancelled at the last minute. What now with the empty slot?.

08How it works in RINDIQ

In RINDIQ Analytics(on the Professional and Business plans) these numbers are worked out from your bookings, and each one is compared with the previous period, so you don't need the calculator. Analytics has four parts:

• Overview:revenue, average ticket, attendance and how many euros this period went to clients who didn't show up.
• Capacity:how much of your schedule was booked and revenue per hour. Holidays and days off aren't counted as empty time. There is also a list of the times that most often stay empty.
• Clients:new and returning, plus a list of clients who haven't been in a while, compared with their own usual rhythm. A client who comes once a month and hasn't been in six weeks shows up there; one who comes twice a year doesn't.
• Channels: how clients book and whether reminders reduce no-shows. More on that in Do you need SMS reminders if you have email?.

You choose the period yourself, and analytics works on your phone too.