Switching tanning salon software: what moves over and a day-one checklist

What moves over, and where it lands

A switch comes down to five kinds of record: your clients with their keytags and visit history, the packages they still hold, gift certificates already sold, signed consent forms, and the setup behind the desk (rooms, lamps, packages, tax and staff). Here is where each one goes in TanVision.

TanVision imports three lists from your old system, each a spreadsheet saved as CSV: your clients, the packages they still hold, and their visit history. A manager brings them in from Clients → Import a list, each list is checked against what is already there, and nothing is added until they press Add. The rest of this table is set up in TanVision itself. Book a demo and we will walk through what your move involves.

The switching trap: packages that ring up as retail

One expensive switching mistake is a package that lands in the catalog as a retail product. It looks right on the till and takes the right money, but it puts nothing on the client's account, and nobody notices until the client comes back for a visit they already paid for. TanVision met this with a real salon's catalog and built the fix into Inventory.

• Inventory flags items on the till that read like packages but are set up as retail, and says how many there are.
• Make package turns one of them into a real package. It keeps the price, sets up its row in the access matrix, and retires the old product so past receipts still name what was sold.
• Convert all fixes the whole list in one go. It reads the terms from the names, so "Buy 3 Visits Get 1 FREE" becomes four visits. Anything it cannot read with confidence stays as retail for you to check, and gift cards are never converted.
• A check at the bottom of Inventory lists which recent sales put a package on an account and which did not.

Building your memberships and packages as packages from the start avoids the problem entirely.

Before you switch off the old system

Take a final copy of what you need while the old software still opens. Export your clients, your open packages and your visit history as spreadsheets and save each as CSV. A printed list is enough for the rest.

• Every active client, with date of birth, phone, skin type and keytag number.
• Every open package: who holds it, the sessions left and the expiry date.
• Each client's visit history: who came, the date and time, the room and the minutes. If your old system gives each client a number, keep that column in all three files, because it is how the second and third list find the right person.
• Every unspent gift certificate, with its code and balance.
• The hours on each bed's lamps, by group if you track the face lamps, top canopy and bottom separately.
• Your package menu and prices, and whether the old system recorded the 10% tanning tax as excise or as sales tax.
• The last full day's close-out, to compare against your first day in TanVision.

Keep the old records and paper waivers for as long as your state requires. The recordkeeping guide has the details.

What stays behind

Two things do not carry over, and both show up at the desk on day one.

• Skin types. They are not read from a file. Set each client's type on their record. Where your salon has switched skin typing off and a client has no type on file, the limit is the room's maximum.
• Old signatures. Waivers signed in your old system stay with your old records. A client with no signed warning statement on file in TanVision cannot start a session, so send regulars your consent link before their first visit.

Visit history does carry over once you import it. Each client's past UV visits count towards their place on the built-in schedule, so a regular is not treated as a first-timer. A client with no imported history starts at the first step and moves up with each visit, never above the room's maximum, and the desk can type a shorter time, not a longer one.

How the exposure rules work is on the exposure safety page.

Your day-one checklist

Most of the setup happens before the first client tans, so opening day is check-ins rather than configuration. Work through it in this order.

1. Rooms: add each room with its type, level and the maximum minutes from the unit's label, then its lamp groups at today's meter hours.
2. Tanning rules: set the gap between UV sessions and whether your salon uses skin typing. A gap of 0 turns the block off, and the desk still sees a warning for a second UV session inside 24 hours. Check your state on the tanning laws pages first, and tell us its minimum age on the demo so the age check matches it.
3. Consent form: enter your wording, add the questions you ask, and have your attorney review it. Editing it later never changes a form already signed. The consent form guide has more.
4. Packages: build each one, then fill in its row in the access matrix. A package with no rule for a room falls through to the walk-in price, and no session comes off the balance.
5. Tax: set your sales tax rate, then each item's excise, added on top or included in the price. The IRS exempts spray-on tanning from the 10% indoor tanning tax, so set the excise on spray tan items to 0.
6. Staff: add a login for each person, and give jobs such as rooms, tax or stock to the whole team or to one person.
7. Receipts: add your own header and footer.
8. Gift certificates: add every card sold before TanVision.
9. Clients: import your client list, then what they already hold, then their visit history (Clients → Import a list), and send regulars your consent link.
10. First day: check in the first regulars with your old records beside you, look at the grant check in Inventory after the first package sales, and print the day sheet at close.

What to check before you commit

A switch should not bring surprises after the fact. TanVision does not do these things today; if your salon depends on one of them, raise it on the demo.

• Timer brands other than T-Max. TanVision sends session times to beds on T-Max timer controllers, through a small box TanVision supplies that sits on your network next to the T-Max controller. Other timer brands are not supported yet.
• Internet outages. TanVision is cloud software, and offline trading is not something we can promise today.
• Chains. Running several locations from one account is not ready today.

Talk it through

If the counter PC is still on Windows 10, read what the end of Windows 10 support means for your salon software. Then book a demo with your package menu and a rough client count to hand, and we will go through your move step by step.