Accountant for hair and beauty salons

An accountant for a hair salon or a beautician keeps the books from the till to the annual accounts: splitting revenue between services and product resale, applying 20% VAT, securing an NF525-certified till, protecting the tip exemption for your employees, running payroll under IDCC 2596 or IDCC 3032, and choosing the right legal structure. The goal: turning till data into management decisions.

Behind the label "hair and beauty", the underlying business models differ widely. A sector-focused accountant starts by identifying yours, because the bookkeeping, the payroll and the tax treatment all flow from it.

The hair salon combines salaried staff, an appointment schedule and the resale of hair-care products. Operating one legally requires a qualified professional (holder of the BP, the BM or an equivalent diploma, or three years of professional experience). Profitability is driven by the schedule fill rate, revenue per employee and the payroll ratio: the accounts must connect those three readings.

The barber shop follows the same rules as a hair salon (same qualification requirement, same collective agreement), with a tighter average ticket and a faster client rotation. Steering happens on volume and on time spent per service, with particular attention to price positioning.

The beauty institute lives on longer treatments (face, body, hair removal), packages and prepaid course programmes. Those advance receipts create deferred revenue that must be tracked on the balance sheet: the cash is in the bank, but the service is still owed. The cosmetic retail share is usually higher than in hairdressing.

The beautician, in an institute or working from clients' homes, frequently works alone, often as a micro-entrepreneur at the start. Working mobile removes the rent but none of the obligations: standard-rate VAT once out of the exemption regime, a certified till if sales are recorded through a cash register system, and disciplined tracking of travel and small equipment. Moving to premises, or into a company, should be prepared with real figures.

The nail bar and lash bar rely on short services, heavy consumption of supplies (polish, gels, tips) and sometimes a franchise model. The line between consumables used during services and products resold as-is must be kept clean, because it drives both margin and deductible VAT.

Each of these models can be run as a sole proprietorship, an EURL, a SARL, a SASU or a SAS, taxed under personal income tax (BIC) or corporate tax. The common ground: a cash-based business, in direct contact with consumers, where the accounts must match the reality of the front desk. Identifying your model from day one prevents cascading errors: the wrong collective agreement on payslips, revenue poorly split between services and resale, tips mixed up with sales, or a legal status kept far too long after the business has changed scale.

First reflex to remember: in hairdressing as in beauty, there is no reduced VAT rate. Services (cuts, colour, facials, hair removal, manicure) and product resale (shampoos, serums, creams, polish) all carry the standard 20% rate. A mobile beautician is no more exempt from it than a street-level salon.

The real technical point is therefore not the rate, it is the split. Your accounts must separate three flows:

This 706/707 split drives the reading of your margins (a service margin is not computed like a resale margin), the defence of your VAT position in an audit, and the monitoring of the VAT exemption threshold: EUR 37,500 excluding tax for services. As long as you stay below it, you charge no VAT, but you recover nothing on your purchases of products, furniture or fit-out works.

For threshold purposes, a hair or beauty salon is classified as a service activity (NAF codes 96.02 or 96.04): the services threshold governs the main activity, while product resale remains an ancillary flow to be tracked separately.

Second pillar: the till. Any VAT-registered business collecting payments from consumers through a cash register system must use secure software, NF525-certified or covered by the publisher's individual attestation (reinstated by the 2026 Finance Act): recorded transactions cannot be altered, receipts are numbered, and the till journal is archived for tax audit purposes. It is a legal obligation, not a comfort option. We check your software's certification, its configuration (categories for services, products, tips, gift cards, deposits) and the monthly reconciliation between the till Z-reports and the bank deposits.

Gift cards and prepaid packages deserve a mention: the cash comes in before the service is delivered, and the accounts must reflect that timing gap so the month's revenue is not artificially inflated.

Finally, cash payments are capped: a professional cannot accept more than EUR 1,000 in cash from the same client for a single transaction. A daily till journal (opening float, receipts, cash expenses, closing balance) protects your file in the event of an audit.

This is one of the points most often mishandled in salons, even though the framework is favourable. The tip exemption has been extended for three years, until 31 December 2028, by article 5 of law no. 2026-103 of 19 February 2026 (Finance Act for 2026): tips given to your employees are exempt from income tax and social contributions, under precise conditions.

The conditions to respect:

• Who. Only employees in contact with clients qualify: hairdressers, beauticians, salaried barbers. The salon owner does not qualify: his or her own tips form part of the business's taxable revenue.
• How much. The employee's gross monthly pay, excluding tips, must stay below 1.6 times the SMIC. That ceiling tracks the SMIC and is recalculated at every uprating: it stands at EUR 2,987 gross since 1 June 2026 (against EUR 2,916 from 1 January to 31 May 2026). Above it, the tips received become taxable and subject to contributions again. The check is done employee by employee, month by month.
• How. The exemption applies whatever the payment method: cash handed over directly, a tip added to a card payment, or a shared pool later distributed. In return, everything must be documented in payroll: amounts traced, passed on in full to staff, and identifiable employee by employee.

In the accounts, a tip never goes through a revenue account: it passes through a third-party account before being paid out. A tip collected at the till and left inside turnover artificially inflates your revenue, your VAT and your profit, while depriving the employee of her exemption. That is a double loss, entirely avoidable with a correct till configuration.

Beware of the false friend too: a "service percentage" automatically added to the bill is not a tip. Lacking the voluntary element, it is ordinary remuneration, subject to social contributions and income tax.

We cover the full circuit (till, payroll, supporting documents to keep) in our article on till, VAT and tips in hair and beauty salons. As part of our engagement, we set this circuit up with your till software and your payroll, so the benefit is real, quantified and defensible in an audit.

Payroll is a salon's largest cost line, and one of URSSAF's first audit points. The dividing line is simple to state: hairdressing falls under the collective agreement for hairdressing and related professions (IDCC 2596), while beauty falls under the aesthetics and cosmetics collective agreement (IDCC 3032). It is less simple to apply in a mixed salon: the attachment is analysed by the main activity and the roles actually held, not by the shop sign or the wording of the lease.

Concretely, the agreement sets the applicable minimums: in hairdressing, the level 1, step 1 minimum reaches EUR 1,843 gross as of 1 March 2026 (amendment 51) for 151.67 hours. That figure sits below the SMIC (EUR 1,867.02 gross since 1 June 2026), so the SMIC is what must actually be paid: a collective grid never overrides the statutory minimum. A payslip built on the conventional minimum alone creates a back-pay claim. The grids also govern classifications, certain premiums and the apprenticeship framework, which is very common in both trades.

We run payroll on Silae, mapping every payslip to the correct grid, and we monitor with you:

• contracts, amendments, part-time work and additional hours;
• apprentices and work-study staff, from contract to end of training;
• premiums and commissions on product sales;
• the tip exemption, documented employee by employee (1.6 SMIC threshold);
• payroll cost against revenue and against the schedule fill rate.

A collective agreement error costs you twice: back pay before the employment tribunal on one side, a contributions reassessment on the other. The point deserves to be locked down from the very first hire.

Many beauticians and hairdressers start out as micro-entrepreneurs. The regime is simple and well suited to a solo launch, but it comes with hard figures to watch closely:

• 2026 micro ceilings: EUR 203,100 of revenue for goods sales, EUR 83,600 for services. A mixed salon tracks both envelopes;
• VAT exemption: EUR 37,500 excluding tax on services. Staying below simplifies invoicing, but forfeits deductible VAT on purchases, fit-out and works;
• micro contributions: around 21.2% of collected revenue on services and 12.3% on product sales (2026 rates), with no deduction of actual expenses.

Moving to a company (EURL, SARL, SASU, SAS) becomes relevant when the model grows: premises and fit-out works to depreciate, meaningful stock, a first hire, the takeover of an existing business, or a profit level that justifies corporate tax (reduced 15% rate up to EUR 42,500 of profit). Under the real regime, every expense is deductible, chairs, wash basins and cabins are depreciated, and the owner's remuneration can be steered between salary and dividends.

There is no universal right answer. We model both scenarios on your figures (projected revenue, retail share, staffing, investments) before deciding, then we handle the switch at the right time: neither too early, nor under the pressure of a threshold already crossed.

Reselling shampoos, treatments and cosmetics is the salon's or institute's second margin, provided it is steered as a fully fledged commercial activity. Isolated in account 707, it is read through its own indicators: margin per product family, stock rotation, shrinkage and free samples, and the conversion rate between the service and the purchase at the till.

The classic trap is too many product lines. A wide stock makes a fine shelf display, but it ties up cash, increases losses (dated products, ranges discontinued by the supplier) and hides the activity's real margin. We set up a simple framework: purchases reconciled with sales, periodic inventory, and an alert on dormant stock.

That framework also serves compliance. The split between products consumed in the cabin or at the basin (operating expenses) and products resold as-is (stock and margin) makes your profit, your deductible VAT and your management ratios reliable. A salon that knows its product margin sells better, without overloading its shelves.

The beauty institute and the beauty salon carry a particularity that hairdressing rarely faces: part of the revenue is collected before it is earned. A hair-removal course paid upfront, a ten-treatment package, a gift card bought in December: the cash is in the bank immediately, but the service is still owed, sometimes over several months.

The accounting translation is precise: those receipts go through deferred revenue and only become turnover as the sessions are consumed. An institute that books its courses at the moment of collection overstates the profit of the year of sale, triggers tax too early and loses sight of its real activity. The balance of remaining sessions per client becomes accounting data in its own right, to be reconciled with the booking software at every close.

Add to that reservation deposits, billed no-shows and gift cards reaching their expiry date, whose treatment must be set out in your terms of sale. On payroll, the institute falls under the aesthetics and cosmetics agreement (IDCC 3032), with its own classifications, distinct from the hairdressing grid (IDCC 2596): in a mixed hair-and-beauty establishment, the attachment is analysed role by role.

Our service is built for hair salons, barbers, beauty salons, institutes, beauticians working in premises or from clients' homes, and nail bars across France, with a fully digital organisation (Pennylane for accounting, Silae for payroll, Dext for documents) and a response within 24 to 48 hours.

Our typical engagement covers:

• bookkeeping and account review connected to your till software, with the 706/707 split;
• VAT returns and monitoring of the exemption thresholds;
• payroll under IDCC 2596 or 3032, apprentices, and the exempt-tips circuit documented in payroll;
• annual accounts, the tax package and a useful dashboard: revenue per employee, average ticket, product margin, payroll ratio;
• business creation, the takeover of an existing salon or the move to a company, backed by projections;
• electronic invoicing compliance: receiving electronic invoices becomes mandatory for all VAT-registered businesses on 1 September 2026, and your salon must be connected before the deadline.

Every salon has its own service mix, its team and its neighbourhood. Whether you are opening your first institute, taking over an existing salon or structuring a second location, we frame the file from your real figures, not from sector averages. Contact the firm for a first conversation about your situation.

Updated 12 July 2026. Informational content reviewed by a chartered accountant registered with the Ordre des experts-comptables d'Île-de-France.