How to Set Up a Salon Reception iPad for Busy Saturdays

Saturday morning starts calmly enough. Then 9am hits, and so does everything else at once.

Three clients arrive for their appointments. Two more walk in off the street because they spotted a gap in their schedule. The phone rings. Your junior stylist needs to process a retail sale — shampoo and a conditioning treatment — while your receptionist is trying to check someone in and someone else is asking about pricing.

Sound familiar? If you run a busy salon, Saturday is both your best trading day and your most stressful. The good news: a properly configured reception iPad can take a huge amount of pressure off your front desk — without giving staff access to things they shouldn’t touch.

What Is the Reception Dashboard?

DoTheBeauty’s Reception Dashboard is a PIN-protected view designed specifically for front-of-house staff. It runs on any iPad or tablet and shows only what a receptionist needs: today’s appointment schedule, the ability to create walk-in bookings, and a quick billing interface.

Your full admin — team settings, financials, account details — stays locked away. Staff see the dashboard; you keep control of everything else.

The Reception Dashboard is available on the Growth and Pro plans.

Setting It Up: Step by Step

Step 1: Enable the Reception Dashboard

Log into your DoTheBeauty admin, head to Settings, and look for the Reception Dashboard section. Turn it on and create a PIN — something your front desk staff can remember but that isn’t obvious. Four to six digits works well.

This PIN is what staff will use to unlock the dashboard each morning. It gives them access to the reception view and nothing else.

Step 2: Mount or Position Your Tablet

Any modern iPad or Android tablet works. For a reception desk setup, a desk stand or counter mount keeps it fixed in place and easy for both staff and clients to see. Portrait orientation tends to work best for appointment lists; landscape for billing.

Make sure the tablet stays charged — a cable running neatly through a desk grommet keeps things tidy. If you’re using a USB barcode scanner for retail, plug that into the tablet or connect it via Bluetooth before staff arrive.

Step 3: Test the Walk-In Flow

From the reception view, your staff can create a walk-in appointment in seconds. They select the service, assign a stylist, and the booking appears immediately on the real-time appointment view — so whoever’s on the floor knows who’s next without anyone having to shout across the salon.

Before Saturday, run through a few test bookings with your team. The flow is quick, but familiarity matters when the queue is four deep.

Step 4: Set Up Your Product Catalogue for Retail Scanning

This is where things get genuinely useful if you sell retail products alongside your services.

In your admin, go to Products and make sure each item has its barcode or EAN entered. DoTheBeauty supports scanning via the tablet’s camera or a connected USB or Bluetooth scanner. When a client wants to take home that shampoo they just used, your receptionist scans it, it’s added to the bill, and stock levels update automatically when the bill is finalised.

No more end-of-week stock counts that don’t match. No more guessing what sold.

What Staff Can and Can’t Do

It’s worth being explicit with your team about the boundaries of the reception view:

They can:

• See today’s full appointment schedule in real time
• Create walk-in appointments and assign them to stylists
• Process bills — services, add-ons, and retail products
• Scan product barcodes for quick checkout
• Apply discounts if you’ve configured that permission
• Take card payments via Stripe or log cash/transfer payments

They cannot:

• Access your full admin dashboard
• Change pricing, services, or team settings
• View client history beyond the current appointment
• Change the PIN or account settings

This separation is the point. Your receptionist can do their job fully and efficiently without ever touching anything they shouldn’t.

A Typical Busy Saturday, With the Dashboard

By 10am, three clients are in chairs. Two walk-ins have been booked in under a minute each — their stylists already know who’s coming and when. A client at the desk is buying a heat protectant spray; your receptionist scans it, adds a blow-dry to the bill, takes card payment, and hands over a receipt.

The appointment view updates in real time. Everyone knows what’s happening. You’re on the floor doing what you’re there to do.

That’s what a good front-desk setup makes possible.

Ready to Set Up Your Reception iPad?

The Reception Dashboard is included in the Growth plan (from €49/month). If you’re already on Growth or Pro, you can enable it in your settings today. If you’re on Starter and want to try it, start a free trial and upgrade from there.

For salons handling mixed bookings — where clients need more than one stylist in the same visit — take a look at our Mixed Bookings feature, which pairs well with the reception setup for managing complex Saturday schedules.