A carrier bag of tubes across town
You run three salons. On Thursday the town centre branch runs out of a popular shade. The manager rings the branch across town, which has plenty, and a junior is sent over to collect a handful of tubes and a litre of developer. Nobody writes it down. The next week the other branch runs out of something else and the favour is returned.
At the month end, each branch's colour cost looks wrong. The town centre seems cheap to run, the other branch expensive. Orders from each branch are placed separately with the wholesaler, so one site is overstocked in shades the other needs.
Why group colour stock drifts
Each branch is treated as its own shop for stock, but in practice they share. Transfers are informal favours between managers and never recorded.
Ordering is done branch by branch, with no view of what the others hold. A shade can be overstocked in one site and out of stock in another at the same time.
And the group's colour spend is known only as a total on the wholesaler's invoice. Which branch used what, and why, is guesswork.
Brand choices can differ slightly between branches too. One site carries an extra toner range, another has a few shades left from a trial. When stock moves between them unrecorded, even the product list at each site stops being reliable, and a stylist covering at another branch cannot be sure what she will find in the colour room.
What that costs
| Problem | Effect |
|---|---|
| Transfers not recorded | Stock counts wrong at both sites |
| Colour costs misallocated | Branch figures misleading |
| Ordering by branch in isolation | Overstock in one, shortages in another |
| Emergency trips | Staff time out of the salon |
| No group view | Harder to negotiate with suppliers |
The quiet cost is in decisions. When branch figures are wrong, judgements about which salon is doing well are made on bad information.
How we track colour across the group
- Each branch has its own colour stock record, set up from the same product list so shades and codes match.
- When colour is moved, the sending branch scans the items on a phone and chooses the receiving branch. The receiving branch confirms on arrival. Both records update.
- A group stock view shows each shade at each branch, so a manager short of a shade can see who has it before ringing round.
- Colour usage per branch is recorded from bowl-weighing systems or scans, so each site's colour cost reflects what it actually used.
- Suggested orders are produced for the group, taking into account stock at all branches, so surplus at one site is used before more is bought for another.
- Where it saves trips, a suggested rebalancing list is produced for the regular van or courier run between branches.
If your salon software already supports multi-site stock and transfers, we set that up properly before adding anything.
A month later
The town centre manager checks the group view on Thursday, sees the shade she needs is at the other branch, and asks for it to be sent over. The junior scans it out and the manager scans it in. At the end of the month, each branch's colour cost reflects what it used. The group order is placed once, taking account of stock across all three salons.
- Every transfer recorded at both ends
- Accurate colour costs by branch
- One group view of colour stock
- Orders that use surplus before buying more
Supplier conversations change too. With accurate group usage, you can discuss terms with your wholesaler or brand from a position of knowledge.
Does this happen in your group?
- Colour is borrowed between branches without a record.
- Branch colour costs look odd from month to month.
- One branch runs out of shades another has too many of.
- Each branch orders separately.
- Staff are sent across town to collect tubes.