As a senior technician at Argo Networks, Alice Hunt lovingly identifies as a geek of all trades. She came to the team in the early stages of Salon 360’s development, and works with indoor tanning salons across the country. Alice loves new solutions for business owners’ most common challenges. In a Smart Tan exclusive interview, she shares her views on the importance of data and transparency.

Q: What reports are the most important for salon owners to pull on a regular basis?

A: The most important thing is to understand your daily sales. Keeping track of sales on a daily basis helps you make sure you’re able to cover your expenses. If you don’t know how much money you’re bringing in, you won’t really know if you can afford to add a new sunbed or if some of your equipment just isn’t getting used. It can also be a great indicator of performance for your team. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people be wrong about who their star employee is.

It’s also important to know your inventory. If you’re in the salon a lot, it’s easy to see when something is low, but that doesn’t mean you know what is and isn’t selling well. By the time a business gets five or six employees, things fall through the cracks, so you really need that data to make decisions. Salon 360 takes this one step further and keeps an eye on inventory and discounts to address theft prevention. It’s important to know if your employees are going around the system to give free or discounted items.

Click here to read the entire article in this month’s issue of Smart Tan Magazine online.