Booker

Booker is a godsend for so many salons. It is very user-friendly and they have implemented the use of embedded training videos for all the features; this is a wonderful tool and works very well for people who are visual learners, which most stylists happen to be. For salon managers and owners, Booker offers a variety of tools: time-clock, sales tracking, inventory, tip allocation, expenditures/budgets, etc. Being a web-based software, it's very easy to add a widget or embed a link on your website and/or Facebook page to allow customers to easily schedule themselves for services. In addition, there is a built-in point of sale system that makes it easy to check out clients without needing to switch over to another program and/or system.

The downside to being a web-based software: if the server is down or there is an issue with the website, you cannot access your calendar or your point of sale system. Booker has been awesome enough to provide a separate website where they allow you to report issues of the system being down and also announcing known issues. Their customer service makes up for this issue.

Ease of use so, easy to train. In the Day Spa industry front desk turnover is frequent so it is nice to be able to quickly show a new gal how to use the system.

We were previously Salon Iris customers and I am a programmer. With access to the database on that system I could run queries on anything in the database. Booker does not provide access to the SQL database so that is not possible. I do however have all of the reports that I need.

Also, it would be nice to have the ability to set access a little more granular. For example, if I give a gal access to look at gift card balances, I will also have given her access to modify gift card balances.

I liked the notion of what they "sell" to you. not what they actually deliver. I guess I like that it's a cloud based system, which you can't say for Millennium.

Booker is going more towards a multi-industry platform & removed many of its spa related functionality. No longer can you create spa packages, for example.

Much of the customization they sell you on doesn't exist at all. It used to on their old platform, but new customers don't get to use that anymore, so your gift card site & the online booking site will look like a Kindergartner designed it in an extracurricular activity.

You don't have the ability to customize categories for your services/products. For example, if you do hydrotherapy, there isn't a category for things like vichy showers. You do have auto repair available though... so congrats.

If you're looking to have a smooth experience with onboarding, you'll be disappointed. The data "expert" we worked with missed his deadline by 4 weeks and then just disappeared. We had to start completely over and then the new "expert" imported the wrong data and we had to start over again. We worked with onboarding for almost 5 months and never got live.

There's no ecommerce capabilities, even though their web site promotes it and their sales people promote it. At this point, it's a flat out lie. Doesn't exist.

You have to work with a 3rd party for your POS system (Clover). We signed up for a special and were supposed to get 2 set ups for free, but they came back to us after we signed up and said "nope, sorry, we were wrong, you can only have one." And, then they sent us 2, except one was incompatible with Booker.

Booker is easy to set up and very intuitive. The price is good and they have great customer service.

There are alot of features which is a good thing but it can take time to train your staff on how to use the software