Salon Public Holiday Surcharges and Closures Made Easy

Salon public holiday surcharge and closure admin finished for the year

Part 7 of Spring Sorted: the 8-week series on getting your salon Christmas ready.

A salon public holiday surcharge is a five minute job that you will otherwise do badly, in a hurry, forty times at the till in December.

This is the unglamorous week. No new feature to be excited about, no clever marketing play. Just the two bits of housekeeping that decide whether your December feels handled or frantic.

December runs smoothest when the admin is done in November

Think about what actually goes wrong in a salon over the holidays. It is almost never the hair.

It is the client who booked the 26th because nobody told them you were shut. It is the three phone calls on Christmas Eve asking what your hours are. It is somebody on the desk trying to remember whether the public holiday loading applies to this service, doing the sum wrong, and a client going home slightly annoyed.

None of it is difficult. That is what makes it so easy to leave. Each piece takes five minutes, none of it is urgent in November, and all of it becomes urgent at once in the week you have the least room to deal with it.

All of that is decided now, in November, while you still have the attention to make the decisions properly. Two jobs, one sitting.

Job one: announce your closures early

Your clients are planning December right now. They are working out when they are off, when the in-laws arrive, and when they need their hair done before all of it. The salons that tell people their closure dates early get booked into the dates around them. The ones that wait get the awkward phone calls.

So send a short SMS with your holiday trading dates. Plain and useful, not a marketing message:

Hi Sam, our Christmas hours: open until 4pm on the 24th, closed the 25th to the 28th, back to normal from the 29th. Book your December spot early, they go fast: [your booking link]

The SMS marketing guide covers sending it to your whole list.

Then do the half of this job that most salons forget: update your roster so the closed days cannot be booked online. An announcement tells people you are shut. The roster makes it impossible for them to book anyway. You want both, and if you set your roster up back in week one of this series you already know where to do it.

Job two: automate your salon public holiday surcharge

If you open on a public holiday you are almost certainly paying penalty rates, and most salons pass some of that on. The usual way this gets handled is a note taped to the till and somebody doing percentages in their head at four o'clock on Boxing Day.

Advanced Discounting does surcharges as well as discounts. Set the rule once: which dates, how much, what it applies to. From then on it goes on automatically at the till, every time, without anybody deciding anything. The setup guide is here, and it is built in and ready to switch on.

Two things worth doing alongside it. First, tell people. A surcharge nobody mentioned until the card machine comes out is the fastest way to sour a good appointment, and a line on your booking page and a line in your confirmation removes the surprise entirely.

Second, check how you are displaying it. There are rules in Australia about how prices and extra charges have to be shown, and the ACCC covers them on its price displays page, including weekend and public holiday charges. That is general information rather than advice about your salon, and if you are unsure how it applies to you it is worth asking someone who can advise properly. The short version: be clear, be up front, and do not let a client find out at the end.

The November housekeeping checklist

Four ticks, one sitting:

  1. Closure SMS sent, with your holiday trading dates in plain language.
  2. Roster updated so closed days cannot be booked online.
  3. Public holiday surcharges set in Advanced Discounting, and mentioned where clients will see them.
  4. Deposits double checked, because December bookings are the ones you most want to hold. Set up in week three if you have not yet.

One extra worth adding if you have the energy: write your holiday hours somewhere clients will look without being told. Your Google listing, your Instagram bio, a note on the mirror at the basin. People forget an SMS from three weeks ago. They do not forget the sign they read while their colour was developing.

That is the whole job. An hour in November, and December stops being something you brace for and starts being just another busy, good month in a salon that has its house in order.

Questions salon owners ask about holiday trading

Can a salon charge a public holiday surcharge in Australia?

Surcharges on public holidays are common in service businesses, and the rules are mostly about how you display and disclose the charge rather than whether you may apply one. The ACCC's price displays guidance is the place to start. This is general information, not legal advice, so check your own position if anything is unclear.

How do I announce salon closure dates to clients?

SMS is the one that gets read. Send it in early to mid November with your exact dates and your booking link, and update your roster at the same time so the closed days come off online booking.

How do automatic surcharges work in Simple Salon?

You create a rule in Advanced Discounting that says which dates the surcharge applies to and how much it is. After that it is applied at the till automatically. Nobody has to remember it and nobody has to calculate it.

When should salons do their Christmas admin?

The first half of November. Late enough that you know your real dates, early enough that clients are still making their December plans around you rather than despite you.

The Spring Sorted series

Eight weeks, one simple step at a time, until your salon walks into December completely handled.

A new part lands every Monday until 9 November.

Get the admin done this week

Already with Simple Salon? Switch it on today. Send your closure dates with SMS marketing, update the roster, then set your automatic public holiday surcharge. One sitting and it is done for the year.

Not with us yet? Surcharges, closures, rostering and online booking all read from the same place, so setting a rule once is genuinely once. Start your free trial. See what it costs, or look at what else is built in.

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