Back bar and retail
For Salon owners & managers · 5 min read · Last reviewed 2026-08-04
A salon holds two kinds of stock. The back bar — colour cream, developer, bleach, toner, foils — is consumed during services. The retail shelf — shampoo, conditioner, styling wax — is sold over the counter. RetailPOS tracks both, but differently.
Back bar depletes on service
Colour and highlight services carry a recipe — a full-head colour uses cream and developer; full highlights use bleach, developer, foils and toner. Selling the service draws each of those down automatically, so the back bar reflects the store room, not guesswork. Refunding the service restocks it.
The retail shelf
Retail products — shampoo, conditioner, hair oil, styling wax, nail polish — are stocked directly, no recipe. Ring one up like any product; on-hand counts down by one. Sell it on the same ticket as the service so it credits the stylist who recommended it.
Keep them apart
The pack seeds the back-bar items as ingredients and the retail products in their own Retail categories, so the two never get muddled. Valuation and stock reports show each for what it is — product you consume versus product you sell.
Frequently asked
- Do I count colour cream or finished colours?
- The raw product. Colour services carry a recipe that depletes cream, developer, bleach, toner and foils when the service sells.
- Does refunding a service restock the back bar?
- Yes. A refund restocks the recipe ingredients, never more than was sold.
- Is retail stock tracked the same way?
- No — retail products are stocked directly with no recipe, so selling one simply decrements its on-hand count.
Put it into practice.
Open your shop and try it live. Free until your first 100 sales — no card, keep your hardware.