App builder

A salon inventory app for the back bar
and the retail shelf at the desk.

Describe how your salon runs and Netiva’s AI builds a web app that logs the product used on each service, tracks take-home sales at the front desk and lists what to reorder — with a live preview and code you own.

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Starter prompt

Build a salon inventory web app for a hair salon with eight chairs. Keep back-bar products (color, developer, lightener) apart from retail products sold at the desk. Back-bar items need a container size and unit (g or ml), cost, unopened stock and a reorder point. Stylists sign in and log each service with its ticket, the grams of each product mixed and one leftover bowl weight, split into applied and wasted. Add an Open a container button that lowers unopened stock. The front desk scans retail sales and credits the recommending stylist. Add a product page that receives deliveries, a reorder list by brand and each stylist’s cost per service.

Build it in Netiva Paste the prompt into a new workspace and adjust it to your business.
Overview

Who this salon inventory app is for

In many salons the back bar and the retail shelf get the same monthly count, even though one is a service cost and the other is stock you resell. Nobody can say whether a root touch-up takes a little color or a lot, which stylist mixes more than they apply or why the 7N tubes ran out on a Saturday. A salon inventory app built with Netiva keeps professional and take-home products apart, records what each stylist uses on each service and sells at the desk and lists what to reorder before a shade runs out.

Key features

What your salon inventory app can do

  • Back bar and retail, kept apart

    Professional products you use on clients and take-home products you sell to them live in separate collections, so service costs and retail stock never end up in the same count.

    • Back-bar items with a container size, its unit (g or ml) and a cost
    • Retail items with a barcode, unit cost and shelf price
    • A liter of shampoo at the bowl and its retail bottle kept as two records
    • Saved views by brand, category and stock level

  • Usage per service and stylist

    At the color bar, stylists sign in on a phone, pick the service and ticket, find each tube by shade or name and enter the grams of color, developer or lightener they weighed into the bowl.

    • Product cost per service from each container’s size and price
    • One leftover weight split by how much of each product went in, into applied and wasted
    • Opening a tube takes one off the unopened count and starts a left-in-the-tube figure
    • Your own entries for the day listed under the form

  • Retail sales at the front desk

    When a client takes home what their stylist recommended, the front desk scans the package with the phone camera, enters the quantity and credits the stylist.

    • Camera barcode lookup, or own-brand bottles picked by name
    • Retail units and sales per stylist, month by month
    • Slow sellers with no sales in the last 60 days
    • Shelf stock lowered with every logged sale

  • Reorders by brand

    Unopened back-bar stock and retail stock are checked against each product’s reorder point, and a weekly email sends the owner one list per brand, ready for the distributor or brand rep.

    • Color reordered shade by shade, not by line
    • Suggested quantities from the reorder point and recent usage
    • A printable order sheet for each brand
    • Deliveries received on the product page and added to unopened stock
Data model

The collections behind it

Netiva keeps your records in built-in collections. Here’s a starting structure — the agent adapts it to your prompt, and you can change it any time.

Back-bar products

Professional products used on clients during services, counted by unopened container.

  • Name (required) Include the shade or volume, e.g. 7N or 20 volume developer Text
  • Brand (required) Also groups the reorder list Text
  • Category (required) Color, Developer, Lightener, Treatment or Spa Text
  • Container size (required) How much one tube, bottle or tub holds, in the unit below Number
  • Unit (required) g or ml — one unit for the container size and every logged amount; weigh liquids in g too Text
  • Cost per container (required) What you pay your distributor Number
  • Unopened stock (required) Number
  • Reorder point (required) Unopened containers left when it’s time to order Number

Retail products

Take-home products sold to clients at the front desk.

  • Name (required) Text
  • Brand (required) Text
  • Barcode UPC on the package; leave empty for own-brand items and pick them by name at the desk Text
  • Unit cost (required) Number
  • Retail price (required) Number
  • In stock (required) Units on the shelf and in the stockroom Number
  • Reorder point (required) Number
  • Photo Helps the front desk pick the right bottle Image

Service usage

One row for each back-bar product a stylist mixed for a service, with what was applied and what was wasted.

  • Product (required) Relation to Back-bar products
  • Service (required) Root touch-up, Full highlight, Toner, Facial… Text
  • Stylist (required) Filled in from the signed-in stylist Text
  • Ticket number From your booking system; no client details stored here Text
  • Amount mixed (required) Grams or ml of this product weighed into the bowl Number
  • Leftover bowl weight Weighed once at the end of the service and shared out across this ticket’s products Number
  • Amount wasted This row’s share of the leftover, by how much went in; applied is what’s left Number
  • Logged at (required) Date & time

Retail sales

Each take-home sale logged at the desk and credited to the stylist who recommended it.

  • Product (required) Relation to Retail products
  • Quantity (required) Number
  • Price each (required) As charged at your register Number
  • Recommended by The stylist credited with the sale Text
  • Sold at (required) Date & time
  • Logged by (required) Filled in from the signed-in front desk account Text

Required field. Types are Netiva collection field types.

Screens

Pages and screens to start with

A typical first version. Ask the agent for more, or annotate the preview to change any of them.

  • Color bar

    Pick the service and ticket, enter what you weighed into the bowl, then one weight for the leftover — the app splits it across the products in the ratio you mixed them.

    Your team

  • Retail desk

    Scan a take-home product or find it by name, enter the quantity and the stylist who recommended it; the stock count drops as soon as the sale is saved.

    Your team

  • Products

    Back-bar and retail products side by side, filtered by brand, category or stock level, with unopened containers and shelf units in one list.

    Your team

  • Product

    One product’s container size, unit, cost, stock and reorder point, with Receive delivery and Open a container buttons and a running figure for what’s left in the open one.

    Your team

  • Reorder

    Back-bar and retail items at or below their reorder point, grouped by brand, with suggested quantities and a printable order sheet.

    Your team

  • Usage and sales by stylist

    Grams and product cost per service type for each stylist with waste beside what was applied, then retail units, sales credited and anything unsold for 60 days.

    Your team
How it works

From prompt to a live salon inventory app

  1. Describe your salon

    Tell Netiva how many chairs and treatment rooms you run, which brands sit on your back bar and how the front desk sells retail. The agent drafts collections for both kinds of product, service usage and retail sales.

  2. Stock the shelves in the grid

    Add each shade, developer and take-home product in the collection grid, or describe a color line and review the rows the collection assistant drafts. Then set container sizes with their units, costs and reorder points.

  3. Try a service in the preview

    Log a sample root touch-up on the color bar screen in the live preview and check the cost it shows. Annotate anything that looks wrong and the agent fixes it.

  4. Publish for your stylists

    Publish in one click, have each stylist and the front desk sign in and switch on the Monday reorder email. Every later change is checkpointed, so you can roll back an edit that doesn’t fit.

Why Netiva

Netiva vs a traditional build

Building a salon inventory app with Netiva compared with a traditional build
Criterion With Netiva Traditional build
Back-bar usage Grams logged on each ticket by the stylist who mixed them, with a cost per service A monthly shelf count with no link between product used and the services performed
Retail credit and reorders Desk sales credited to stylists and a weekly reorder list grouped by brand Sticky notes for who sold what, and empty shelf space spotted when the rep visits
Getting started Describe what you need in chat and watch it take shape in a live preview Hire developers, or stitch together templates, plugins and a hosting plan
Content and data Built-in collections with nine field types, bound straight to your pages Set up and connect a separate database or CMS
Making changes Ask the agent; every change is checkpointed and reversible File a ticket, wait for a sprint, redeploy
Hosting and domain Global hosting and automatic SSL; connect a custom domain from the Starter plan Buy hosting, then install and renew SSL certificates yourself
Code ownership Clean production code you own and can export Locked into a template, plugin or agency setup
Examples

Ways teams use it

  • An eight-chair salon with a color bar

    The owner suspects color costs are creeping up. Two months of logged grams show which services and which stylists mix more than they apply, so the team can agree on bowl amounts and waste less down the sink.

  • A day spa with treatment rooms

    Facial masks, massage oil and wax are back-bar items counted by the container, while the skincare shelf in reception is retail. The spa manager reorders both from one list each Monday.

  • An independent stylist in a salon suite

    A suite renter buys their own color and take-home stock. A pared-down version of the app shows the product cost of each ticket and which retail items actually sell, before the next distributor order.

Good to know

Before you build

  • Your booking and checkout software stays

    Netiva doesn’t replace the system that books appointments and rings up sales. If that provider offers an API, the app can pull completed services or retail sales from it; otherwise stylists and the front desk log them here.

  • Usage is only as good as the weighing

    The app records what stylists weigh. Keep a digital scale at the color bar, tare the bowl and weigh the leftover at the end. Use one unit per product: take a liquid’s net contents from the label (1 US fl oz is about 30 ml), or weigh a full bottle and subtract an empty one.

  • Safety data sheets still need a home

    OSHA says the safety data sheets for hair products and other hazardous products used in a salon must be available to all workers. Add a file field to the back-bar collection for each product’s SDS and keep printed copies staff can reach without signing in.

  • Loading a color line takes a while

    Netiva doesn’t import your distributor’s item file. Start with the shades and sizes you actually keep, entered in the grid or drafted by the collection assistant and checked against the manufacturer’s shade chart, then add the rest as you order it.

FAQ

Questions about building a salon inventory app

Why track back-bar and retail products separately?

Back-bar products are a cost of doing services, while retail products are stock you resell. Counting them together hides both numbers. Separate collections let the app show product cost per service on one side and retail sales and shelf stock on the other. A shampoo you use at the bowl from a liter and sell in a smaller bottle is simply two records with their own reorder points.

How does the app work out product cost per service?

Each back-bar product stores its container size, its unit and what you paid, so the app works out a cost per gram or ml. When a stylist logs the color and developer for a root touch-up, the app multiplies what was mixed — applied plus anything thrown away — by that cost and adds them up, so the service cost reflects what left the tube, not just what reached the hair.

Can stylists log color usage from their phones?

Yes. Netiva builds web apps that open in the phone’s browser, so there’s nothing to install. Each stylist signs in with their own account, picks the service and ticket and enters the grams of each product they mixed. The screen lists that stylist’s own entries for the day, and you can ask the agent later for a barcode field and a camera scan so nobody scrolls through dozens of shades.

Can it connect to my salon booking or checkout software?

Netiva apps can call REST APIs with keys stored securely. If your booking or checkout provider publishes an API, describe the connection to the agent — for example, pulling each day’s completed services so stylists only add the grams, or pulling retail sales so the desk doesn’t enter them twice. Check the provider’s API documentation first, because not every salon platform offers one.

Does it work for a spa or a solo stylist, not just a hair salon?

Yes, and most of what changes is names. Rename the back-bar collection and its Category values — Masks, Oils and Wax in place of Color, Developer and Lightener — and swap the Service field’s values for your treatment list. A stylist renting a suite drops the Recommended by field and the retail desk screen, with nobody else to credit, and keeps usage, stock and the reorder list.

Which Netiva plan does a salon inventory app need?

You can build the app on the free plan and test the color bar and retail screens in the live preview. Custom domains are available from the Starter plan, and higher plans add capacity and features. Compare the current plans on Netiva’s pricing page before you publish the app for your team.

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Drafted with AI assistance from Netiva’s product pages and reviewed by the Netiva team. Example data models, screens and prompts are illustrative starting points, not customer projects.

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