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Run the day · Appointment-to-Payment

From booking to paid, without re-typing the customer

A booked-time business runs the same visit through three tools: a diary, a customer list and a till. IMFlow360 keeps it as one record from the moment it is booked to the moment the drawer closes on it.

Book a DemoSee the Appointments diary

How it usually goes

The booking is in a diary app, the customer is in a phone contact list, and the sale is on a till that has never heard of either. So the receptionist reads the name off one screen and types it into the next, and a mobile number typed slightly differently becomes a second customer.

The client mentions an allergy at the first visit and it is written on a card that stays at the desk. Six weeks later a different stylist is serving them, the card is not to hand, and the question is asked again as if it were the first time.

At the end of the day the diary says twenty-two appointments, the till says nineteen sales, and nobody can say quickly which three were cancelled, which were served and not rung up, and which were rung up under a different name.

Step by step

One guest, one record, from the diary to the drawer

The appointment that is booked is the order that is paid. Nothing below asks anybody to type a name a second time.

Step 01/ 08
  1. Appointments

    Take the booking

    A receptionist puts a future-dated appointment into the diary in Appointments — service, variation, staff, room and time — or the till takes it through its booking wizard. Where the business has switched online payment on, a client can book and pay themselves through IMBeautyGlow via PayFast, and that booking reaches the till already marked paid.

  2. Appointments

    See the clash before it is saved

    Appointments checks the staff member as the booking is made. With double-booking switched off, a second booking for the same person at an overlapping time is refused; approved leave, company holidays and branch holidays show as a warning, never a block, so a colleague can still be covered.

  3. Appointments

    Find the guest, or create them once

    The booking names a guest with a mobile number, looked up in the customer book that Customers keeps and the till holds on the device. Allergy and preference tags entered at an earlier visit are already on the record — parsed, deduplicated and merged, not retyped.

  4. Analytics & Reporting

    Serve, with the work attributed

    Each service on the visit carries the staff member who did it and, where the room has seats, the seat. That attribution is what the staff-wise sales report is built from later; it is attribution only, not commission.

  5. Inventory

    Add retail at the chair

    A product sold during the visit goes onto the same order in Point of Sale rather than a separate sale. The till reads the stock figure to cap the quantity; the deduction itself happens in the cloud when the order syncs.

  6. Appointments

    Take the money

    Cash, and a card or wallet payment taken on your own machine, are each recorded against the order as their own line in Point of Sale — so a deposit taken at booking and the balance at the counter both show, and the order reads paid from what has actually been collected. A tip the client leaves on the customer display goes onto the same order.

  7. Customers

    Receipt and rating

    The receipt is shown on screen and can be reopened from the order list, so a counter without a printer still finishes the visit. On the customer display the client leaves a star rating for the business and for each person who served them, kept against the visit in Customers.

  8. Accounting & Finance

    Read the day, and let the books follow

    Takings, payment mix and sales by staff are on the terminal itself and in Analytics & Reporting. Once staff mark the visit complete, a thank-you goes to the client by email. Product lines post cost of sales to the ledger as they sync; posting the sale itself is switched on per deployment in Accounting & Finance.

    Workflow complete
The diary

Where the day starts

Staff columns, blocks placed by time and coloured by status, and the hours the business is open. What is booked here is what the till sees when the client arrives.

The IMFlow360 appointment calendar: a day view with staff columns, appointment blocks placed by time and coloured by status, and the business hours window for the day.
What changes

What changes

The customer is typed once

The booking, the order, the payment, the rating and the tags all hang off one customer row. The name entered at booking is the name on the receipt, and the till looks the guest up in the customer book it holds on the device, with the connection up or not.

The clash is caught at the desk

A double-booking is refused or warned about as the booking is made, from the front desk and on the till alike. Leave and holidays are shown before you book over them rather than discovered on the morning.

The diary and the till agree

Every appointment is an order and every order is on the diary, so the count of what was booked, served and paid comes from one list. A booking with no recorded length is drawn at an assumed hour and marked as an estimate, not passed off as a fact.

Paid means collected

An order shows paid only when the recorded payments cover it. A deposit and a balance are two lines against the same visit, and a booking paid through IMBeautyGlow, where that is switched on, arrives on the till already settled.

The visit leaves a trace

A star rating per person, an allergy tag that is still there next time, and a thank-you by email once the visit is marked complete. The next visit starts from what the last one recorded.

What it does not do

Worth knowing before a demo rather than after one.

  • Online payment exists only at booking through IMBeautyGlow via PayFast, where the business has switched it on, and for the full amount. There is no card processing at the till: a card or wallet payment taken on your own machine is recorded, not authorised, here.
  • The day-before reminder and the post-visit thank-you go out by email only, with push for IMBeautyGlow users. There is no SMS channel and no WhatsApp sending, and a booking taken at the front desk is not confirmed by email today.
  • The diary warns on approved leave and holidays. It does not read a future rota, so it cannot say who is scheduled next Tuesday, and the clash rule is per staff member, not per chair or room.
  • Posting the sale to the ledger is switched on per deployment, not automatic. Until it is, only the cost of sales for product lines posts, and a service-only visit produces no ledger entry.
  • There is no loyalty scheme: no points, rewards or tiers. The customer record reports that balance as unavailable rather than showing a figure that was never earned.
FAQ

Questions about this workflow.

What owners ask before they move a live business onto a new platform.

Does the till already know the client when they arrive for their appointment?

Yes. The booking is linked to the client's IMFlow360 profile, so the till picks up the same record with their allergies and preferences, even without internet. Nothing has to be typed in twice.

If a client pays online when booking, does the till show it as paid?

Yes, when online payment is switched on. A booking paid through IMBeautyGlow via PayFast arrives at the IMFlow360 till already marked paid. Otherwise the booking is paid at the counter, like one made in person.

Can clients pay a deposit online and the rest after the service?

Not online yet: online payment through IMBeautyGlow is for the full amount. At the salon, the IMFlow360 till can take a deposit when the booking is made and the balance after the service, both recorded on the same order.

Does a paid appointment go into the accounts on its own?

Partly. Product costs go into your accounts as each sale reaches IMFlow360, while recording the sale itself as revenue is a setting that's off by default. Until it's switched on, the till's takings show in your sales reports and the invoices you raise feed your accounts.

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See it against your own work

Staff columns, the double-booking setting, leave and holiday warnings, and the booking API in full.

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