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AI bookkeeping tools for hair and beauty salons in the UK

Salon bookkeeping starts in the booking app: daily takings, card fees, deposits and refunds. Then come product sales, stock used on clients, tips, and chair or room rent going one way or the other. Pulling those into accounting software each week keeps the numbers you'd otherwise only see at tax return time.

Prices were re-checked on each provider's own page; the date is next to each one. Rules and figures from GOV.UK are linked where they're used.

Daily takings from the booking app

Booking apps such as Fresha, Booksy and Timely take card payments at a fee. Bring the daily or weekly takings into your accounting software, with the fees as a separate cost, so what lands in the bank matches your books. Our salon payments page compares the apps.

Retail products, back-bar stock and tips

Keep products you sell separate from products you use on clients: one is retail income and stock, the other is a cost of each treatment. By law, all tips must be passed to workers without deductions, and a statutory code of practice covers tipping policies and records (GOV.UK).

Renting a chair or room

If you rent a chair or room in someone else's salon, the rent is a business cost: rent for business premises is an allowable expense (GOV.UK). If you rent chairs out, record that income separately from treatments and ask your accountant how to treat it.

The options, with prices

Tool	Price and free plan	UK notes and source
Zoho Books Accounting software with a free plan for very small businesses and paid UK plans.	Free: £0. Standard: £12 a month (£10 billed annually). Professional: £24 (£20). Premium: £30 (£25). Per organisation. Free plan for sole traders and micro businesses.	UK pricing in pounds. Source, checked 15 October 2026
FreeAgent UK accounting software for sole traders, partnerships and small companies.	Sole traders: £19 a month. Limited companies: £33 a month or £330 a year. All excl. VAT, with 50% off the first six months when checked. Free with a NatWest, RBS or Ulster Bank business account, or Mettle (conditions apply). Free for eligible NatWest, RBS, Ulster Bank and Mettle customers; otherwise a 30-day free trial.	UK company, pounds. Source, checked 15 October 2026
Xero Cloud accounting for invoices, bank feeds, VAT and payroll, with AI-assisted features.	Ignite: £18 a month. Grow: £39. Comprehensive: £55. Ultimate: £70 (all excl. VAT, paid monthly). When checked, the first 6 months were 90% off. Payroll £1.50 per person a month. No free plan; a free trial and introductory discounts are offered.	UK pricing in pounds; Making Tax Digital compatible. Source, checked 15 October 2026
QuickBooks Cloud accounting with invoicing, expenses and VAT, plus Intuit Intelligence AI features (some in beta).	Plans: Sole Trader Plus, Simple Start, Essentials, Plus and Advanced, each with a 30-day free trial. All include CIS calculation and submission; VAT submission isn't in Sole Trader Plus. Prices load dynamically on the UK pricing page, so check the current figure there. No free plan; 30-day free trial.	UK pricing in pounds. Source, checked 15 October 2026
Sage Accounting UK accounting and payroll software with the Sage Copilot AI assistant included in every plan.	Start: £20 a month. Standard: £43. Plus: £59. All excl. VAT, paid monthly with no long-term contract. Offer when checked: 90% off for 6 months. No free plan; introductory discount instead.	UK company, pounds, Making Tax Digital and CIS support. Source, checked 15 October 2026

What to check before you choose

Is it on HMRC's list of software that works with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax? Check HMRC's finder, not only the provider's page.
Does it read receipts from a photo and match them to your bank feed?
Can it import daily takings and fees from your booking app?
Introductory discounts: budget for the full price (FreeAgent, Xero and Sage all had offers when checked on 14 and 15 October 2026).
Can your accountant log in?

A prompt to start with

Paste this into ChatGPT or Claude, filling in the brackets:

You're helping me with bookkeeping for my salon. Here are this month's booking app takings report, card fees, product purchases and chair rent: [paste]. Split income into treatments, retail and chair rent, separate retail stock from back-bar products, total card fees and tips, and flag anything that doesn't match the bank. Don't give tax advice.

Free tools

Price a job with the quote and VAT calculator (20%, 5%, 0% and reverse charge), or work out your day rate (see how much to charge per hour). Near the VAT threshold? Use the VAT threshold checker and read should I register for VAT? Already registered? See if the VAT Flat Rate Scheme calculator would save you money. Deposit, rebooking and tipping-policy prompts: ChatGPT prompts for salons. Estimate your tax bill with the self-employed tax calculator, see what you owe in January and July with the payments on account calculator, or see whether a company would leave you better off with the sole trader vs limited company calculator. Over £50,000 turnover? Making Tax Digital for Income Tax has applied since 6 April 2026; check your date with the Making Tax Digital checker.

Questions

Is chair rent tax-deductible?

If you're self-employed and rent a chair or room to work from, rent for business premises is an allowable expense, according to GOV.UK.

Do salons need Making Tax Digital software?

Sole traders with turnover over £50,000 in 2024 to 2025 need it from 6 April 2026; the threshold falls to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028.

Are these prices in pounds?

Not all. Where a provider only publishes US dollar prices we show dollars, so check the price in pounds at checkout.

Do you get paid if I sign up?

Some links may become affiliate links, and we'll label them when they do. It doesn't change what we list. See how we make money.

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