Counting coins at closing and doing the bank run isn’t why you got into the beauty business. Going cashless takes a bit of planning and some time with your team, but once it’s set up it speeds up checkout, keeps less cash on the premises so your salon and your team are safer, and hands you back time every week. Here’s how to do it properly, and how Treatwell takes most of the work off your hands. And you don’t have to ditch cash overnight: you can ease into it at a pace that suits you and your clients.
What running a cashless salon really means
A cashless salon leans on digital payments: clients pay by card, by phone, or up front when they book, and cash takes a back seat. How far you take it is up to you: some salons go card-only where local rules allow, others simply steer clients towards card and mobile. Either way the day runs smoother, and you can see what you’ve taken at a glance. When your payments live in the same place as your bookings, everything, your calendar, your takings, your no-show cover, works together instead of in separate corners.
You’ll feel the difference straight away. The more you lean on digital, the fewer counting errors, the less cash sitting around, and the more hygienic every handover. Your checkouts get quicker, and that helps with upsells too: adding a product or treatment is an easy yes rather than another cash transaction. Your reports fill themselves in as you go, so there’s no adding up at the end of the night. Move at whatever pace suits you: some salons phase cash out over a few weeks, others keep a cash option for the clients who want it and just watch card and mobile take over.
Cash vs cashless: the day-to-day difference
Cash means counting, cashing up and trips to the bank, and every one of those steps is a chance to lose track or lose money. Digital payments log every sale the moment it happens, so your numbers stay right and everyone stays accountable. You always know what’s in the till, no end-of-day guesswork. Plenty of salons still do a quick daily check, matching the day’s sales against the report before they lock up.
Why salons are going cashless
Most clients already expect to tap a card or phone, and they like it for the hygiene, the speed and the ease. It suits you too: your books are simpler, there’s far less admin, and you’re not carrying the risk that comes with cash on the premises. Your payment records keep themselves, which makes tax time a lot less painful. That’s why more and more salons are leaning towards card and mobile.
Set up payments and bookings in one place
The easiest setup keeps your bookings and your payments together. Treatwell Connect looks after your bookings, calendar, client records and reports, and Treatwell handles the money side, so you’re not bolting separate tools together or flipping between screens. You’re paid out the next working day on anything over a €25 minimum, including marketplace prepayments, your reports sit right there in Treatwell Connect, and it keeps up as you get busier rather than boxing you in.
Why one system beats two
Because booking and payment live together, your team isn’t juggling a calendar and a separate till. Client profiles in Treatwell Connect keep each person’s booking history, so your regulars are quicker to check out. And prepayments mean your pricier treatments and your busiest slots are paid for before the client’s even sat down.
Prepayments
Prepayment is on from the moment you sign up to Treatwell Connect, so it’s one less thing to switch on. The client pays for their booking up front, which protects your takings on your bigger treatments and your busiest slots, and it cuts right down on no-shows. You can set your own cancellation policy in Treatwell Connect too, whatever suits your salon, and it’s worth spelling out your prepayment and cancellation terms in your booking confirmations and reminders so nobody’s caught out.
And if you’d rather not take payment up front, there’s another way to cover no-shows: Payment protection keeps the client’s card securely on file, held by Stripe rather than stored at your salon, so a no-show doesn’t leave you out of pocket. Just ask Support to switch it on.
Paying on the day
Prepayment takes care of the booking before your client even arrives. For anything settled on the day, many salons also take card and mobile at the desk, which keeps checkout quick and the queue moving.
With Treatwell, you can take payment on your phone with Tap to Pay. Or use a Treatwell Pay card machine at the desk. It’s worth knowing what card payments cost, and how card machine fees compare.
Card details, looked after for you
You don’t store card details, and you don’t need to. Payments through Treatwell are processed by Stripe, one of the most trusted payment providers in the world, so your clients’ card data is handled with the sort of security and PCI compliance you’d expect, the sort that would cost you a small fortune to build and run yourself. Full card numbers are never kept on your devices or seen by your team, so there’s no card data sitting in your salon to worry about, and nothing for your clients to fret over when they pay.
Setting up in-salon payments
For payment on the day, Treatwell gives you two ways to take it at the salon: Tap to Pay on your phone, or a Treatwell Pay card machine at the desk.
Most of the setup is done for you. Once in-salon payments are switched on, contactless, Apple Pay and Google Pay all work out of the box, so clients can pay however they normally do. Tapping usually costs a touch less than keying a card in by hand, so it pays to steer people towards a tap. Run a few practice payments with your team before the first real one, just so everyone’s comfortable with it.
With Tap to Pay, your phone is the card reader. Once the feature’s switched on you can take contactless card and mobile-wallet payments straight from your mobile, with no extra hardware to buy and no waiting, so you’re taking payments the moment it’s switched on. It’s ideal for taking payment at the chair, or wherever the client happens to be.
Prefer a proper terminal at the desk? A Treatwell Pay card machine takes chip, contactless and mobile-wallet payments. It’s a one-off cost of €199, shipping is free, and it lands within 2 to 5 working days. Setting it up is genuinely easy. Keep a backup handy (Tap to Pay on a phone does the job nicely) so a terminal wobble never holds up your busiest day.
Either way, you’ll want a steady internet connection, and a bit of mobile data as backup keeps you going if the Wi-Fi drops.
Make tipping easy at the till
Going cashless doesn’t mean the end of tips. With tipping on the card machine, clients can add a little something when they pay, and it goes to the right person, no envelopes of cash, no awkward sums at the desk.
Get your team ready
Your team need to be happy explaining how payments work, using the tools and sorting the odd hiccup. Give them the confidence to talk about how safe and quick it is, and to keep things moving smoothly at the desk. A calm, quick checkout leaves a good impression too, not just a fast one.
Give everyone a few simple lines for the questions that come up, so the answer’s the same whoever’s on the desk. Nothing unravels a new policy faster than three people explaining it three different ways.
What to say to clients
Let clients know card and mobile are the easiest ways to pay, quick and secure. If you’re still taking some cash during the change, just say so, no need to make a thing of it. Explain prepayment as no-show cover that keeps everyone’s bookings running nicely. And if anyone’s worried about security, reassure them that Treatwell handles the card details: nothing’s stored or seen at the salon.
Keep the checkout quick
Practise the checkout flow until it’s second nature. Lean on digital receipts, that can be emailed to the client at the end of the sale, to skip the receipt-printer faff. Pre-load a regular’s usual treatments so payment’s ready the second they’re done.
Telling clients how to pay
Let clients know how to pay at every step: when they book, in their confirmation, on your website and profile, and across your social channels. Use your email and text templates, and pop clear signage up at reception. A little heads-up means nobody’s caught out, and card-first quickly becomes the norm.
Clients should always know how to pay before they arrive. That one step heads off nearly all the friction while you’re switching over.
Signage and messages you can reuse
Reception sign: “Card and mobile payments preferred: quick, easy and secure.”
Booking site: “We take card and mobile payments (contactless, card or mobile wallet).”
Confirmation email or text: “Thanks for booking. Card and mobile are the easiest ways to pay when you’re in.”
Once card and mobile are the norm and you want to make your preference clearer, you can tighten the wording, for example “Card and mobile are our preferred ways to pay.”
Breaking the news
Give clients plenty of notice and frame it as a convenience, not a rule. Back it up with team training and a few ready answers for the questions you’ll get, and point people to the digital options when they ask. Most adjust quicker than you’d think: the worry beforehand is usually worse than the reality. And if a few want to keep paying cash for now, that’s fine, the balance tips digital on its own.
Running the cashless day-to-day
Move check-in and booking online with QR codes and forms to take the pressure off the front desk. Let reminders and receipts send themselves so your team isn’t repeating the same admin. A quick daily check, matching your takings against your reports and dealing with any refunds or chargebacks, keeps everything tidy. When paying’s quick and easy, your team can get back to looking after clients instead of fiddling with transactions.
Sell memberships or packages online to bring money in up front, and offer self-check-in for a smoother arrival. The aim is to make paying so easy it barely registers.
Your daily money check
Match your takings to your reports and look into anything that doesn’t add up straight away, in case it’s a glitch or something worse. Keep digital records of refunds and chargebacks. Once it’s part of the routine, it’s a few minutes at most.
Let your client messages run themselves
Fire off a confirmation email and text the moment a client books, and send a reminder a day or two before. Send a digital receipt the second they’ve paid, and spell out your cancellation and prepayment terms clearly in every message.
Keeping payments and data safe
The heavy lifting on security sits with Stripe. Card payments run through PCI-compliant systems with tokenisation, and full card numbers are never kept at your salon, so the biggest risk of all, card data on your premises, simply isn’t there. All that’s left for you is the basics: sensible logins, strong passwords and keeping an eye out for dodgy emails.
Good habits for your team
Give people only the access they actually need, so juniors aren’t poking around in your finances. Have a word with the team about phishing and iffy refund requests, which are getting cleverer. Lock devices with strong passwords, and agree a simple “who do I tell” step if something looks off. Keep the Treatwell Connect app and your devices updated so the security fixes land on their own.
Handling a bit of pushback
Some clients, especially the ones who like cash for budgeting, will take a moment to come round, and there’s no need to force it. Keep taking cash from anyone who wants to pay that way, explain the upside plainly, quicker service and less risk, and let them get there in their own time. You’ll see less and less cash crossing the desk as clients feel the benefits for themselves. If your clientele genuinely prefers cash, keep the option open for as long as it suits you.
The questions you’ll get, and how to answer them
On privacy, explain that Treatwell handles the card details and nothing’s stored at the salon. On fees, be straight: most aren’t passed on, and where they are, they’re clear. If someone’s not keen on one way of paying, there’s usually another that suits them: the point is that they can pay, not how. For anyone without a card, a prepaid card can bridge the gap while everyone settles in.
Keep it consistent
Whatever you land on, keep it consistent so everyone on the team gives the same answer and clients know where they stand. If you’re keeping a cash option for now, make sure the team know when and how to take it. Check in every so often, you’ll probably find you can lean further into card and mobile as time goes on.
Know the rules where you are
The rules on taking cash and adding card surcharges vary from one country to the next, and some countries require you to keep accepting cash. Check your local position on cash, surcharges and data protection before you decide how far to take it, and keep digital records of your transactions for tax and audit.
The payoff: quicker, safer, more time back
A card-first till is quicker and the whole day runs smoother. The less cash you handle, the fewer counting errors, and the less theft risk sitting on the premises. Digital records make your finances and your tax far simpler, with no shoebox of receipts to dread. There’s a spend effect too: clients tend to spend a little more freely on card than when they’re counting out notes. It’s even more noticeable when they’ve prepaid, with the booking already settled, adding a treatment or picking up a product on the day feels like a small extra rather than a bigger bill, so upsells land more easily and your team spend less time banking and more on the work that actually brings money in.
What you get back
Every cashless payment shaves a little time off checkout compared with handling cash, and across a busy day that adds up, so you can fit more in without taking on another pair of hands. Less time banking and doing admin means more time with clients, which is usually where a cashless setup pays for itself.
Go cashless with Treatwell
No more counting coins at closing. With Treatwell Pay, you can take card and mobile payments at the desk, add Tap to Pay to take payment anywhere in the salon, and switch on prepayments in Treatwell Connect so every booking is paid and locked in. One setup, and your whole day runs lighter.
Already with Treatwell? Log in to Treatwell Connect to get set up.
New to Treatwell? Get started for free.
FAQs
What's the best way to run a cashless salon?
Keep your bookings and payments in one place, take prepayments to protect your takings, and let Treatwell handle the card data and security. Then get your team comfortable until the new way feels normal.
How do I get card and mobile payments going in my salon?
Most of it's done for you. Once payments are switched on through Treatwell, contactless, Apple Pay and Google Pay work straight away. If you've a card machine, it turns up in 2 to 5 working days with free shipping. Tap to Pay works from your phone once the feature's on. Run a few test payments with your team before your first client.
What do cashless salon payments cost?
Card payments carry a fee that varies by payment type. You don't need to haggle with a processor. For the full picture, see our guide to card machine fees compared.
How do I tell clients about going cashless?
Let clients know at every step: booking confirmations, your website and profile, social media, email and reception signage. Give plenty of notice and frame it as a convenience, not a rule. And you don't have to stop taking cash on day one, keep the option while clients adjust and let card and mobile take over on their own.
How is my clients' payment data kept safe?
Card payments run through Treatwell's PCI-compliant systems with tokenisation, and full card numbers are never kept at your salon. On your side, keep logins sensible, use strong passwords and watch out for phishing.
How do I handle clients who don't want to go cashless?
Explain how quick and safe it is and offer a few digital options. For genuine exceptions, a prepaid card or a bit of cash for a short while can smooth things over.
