When a sale is worth a second look

Every salon loses a little money it can't explain. Almost none of it is theft, most of it is habit, and all of it is invisible unless somebody looks.

Two that read across the salon

Assist in the sales header holds these, because they're a monthly question rather than something the front desk needs between clients.

Refund watch — Scan refund patterns — compares each staff member's refund rate against their peers and says whether anybody stands out. Where nothing does, it tells you the salon average and stops. Where a name does stand out, it says so in a sentence, with the numbers underneath.

Commission claw-back — Review claw-backs — lists refunded sales where the commission is still on somebody's pay, with the amount at risk and a recommendation for each. It's the case nobody remembers to check, because the refund and the payroll run are weeks apart.

Two that are about one sale

Review discount appears on a sale that carries a discount. It compares the discount with what your salon normally gives and says either that it looks normal or, gently, that it doesn't — with a plausible reason rather than an accusation.

Check fraud risk scores a closed sale out of 100 from the shape of it: the discount, any refund, an uncollected balance, how the payment was split. A low score says so and stops there. A higher one explains which of those signals drove it.

How to read a flag

None of these four decides anything. They exist because a number that's unusual for your salon is worth a person's attention, and a number that's normal isn't.

The useful habit is the boring one: press them once a month, read what they say, and ask the person rather than the software. The times a flag turns out to be nothing still tell you something — that your discounting is consistent, that your refunds are spread evenly, that the till behaves the same on a Tuesday as on a Saturday.