Copper Pole Barbers

The queue board, walk-ins and bookings, takings by barber, loyalty cards, chair rent and stock for a barber shop.

Download 545 KB14 tables, 18 queries, 12 reports, 4 print templates and 24,801 invented records, dated back from 2026-10-22.

Rutba Data Files with Copper Pole Barbers, the barber shop sample, open at its print template Receipt: a page laid out with the business's own name and address at the head and one of its records filled in, beside the list of the database's tables and how many records each holds — Copper Pole Barbers in Rutba Data Files, made with its invented records and open at its print template Receipt.

Overview

For a barber shop that takes walk-ins as well as bookings, with some barbers on the payroll and some renting a chair. Copper Pole Barbers is an invented shop with five chairs, open seven days: Monday to Friday 9am to 7pm, Thursday until 8pm, Saturday 8am to 6pm and Sunday 10am to 4pm. The owner and two employed barbers work the shop's three chairs, with a part-time barber on Sundays and Mondays. Chairs 4 and 5 are rented by the week to self-employed barbers, who keep their own takings and pay chair rent plus VAT each Monday.

The records cover the last year of the queue board and the bookings for the next two weeks. Every visit is kept: when the client arrived, when they sat down and when they left, so the waits of walk-ins can be measured. Saturdays are the busiest day, weekdays peak at lunchtime and after work, December is the busiest month and January the quietest. Most visits are regulars who come back every two to six weeks, some booked and some walking in; a walk-in who would wait longer than they will stand leaves, and is counted. A few bookings are cancelled or not kept.

Prices have VAT in them. The shop is registered for VAT; the chair renters are not, so their cuts carry none, and their receipts say whose takings they are. The loyalty card gives a stamp for each paid cut on any chair, and the tenth cut is free; a free cut given on a rented chair is credited against that barber's next week of rent. The shop sells styling and beard products at the desk and orders them each Monday. One chair renter left part way through the year and another took the chair after two weeks.

In Rutba Data Files, choose Barber shop on the start screen, then With sample records to look around, or Empty for the same design with nothing in it.

It suits, with small changes

A barber shop with or without rented chairs
A hair salon that rents chairs to self-employed stylists
A nail bar that takes walk-ins
A tattoo or piercing studio with resident artists
A walk-in clinic or repair counter that measures waiting times
A beauty room that rents rooms to therapists

Read on

Tutorial: the everyday tasks: 7 everyday tasks, step by step, each naming what to open.
Tables, fields and relationships: every field of 14 tables, and how they are related.
Queries, forms, reports and print templates: what each one shows, its criteria and calculated columns, and when to print it.

Things you should know

Everything in a sample's records is invented: the business, the people, their addresses, e-mail addresses on example domains that reach nobody, and phone numbers from the ranges kept for drama and fiction. Tax, company and bank numbers are placeholders of zeros.
The dates count back from the day the file was made, and some run on into the weeks after it, as real bookings and due dates do. Made from the Data Files start screen, a sample is dated from that day. Queries that compare with today (overdue, due this week) show more as a downloaded file gets older.
To start empty, choose the same business on the start screen and then Empty: the same tables, queries, forms, reports and print templates, with nothing in them but the Start Here guide.
Your records live in one file on your computer. Keep copies: File, Save As makes one, and a copy on another drive or in your own cloud storage keeps it safe if this computer is lost. Close the database before copying the file by hand.
Every change to the design (a new field, a renamed table) is a numbered step that Data Files keeps, so you can see what was changed and when.
A visit is also its receipt: the Receipt No, Total and VAT are filled in when it is paid for. A booking still to come, a no-show or a walk-out has no receipt number, and its Receipt prints empty.
Chair renters keep their own takings. Their visits are on the queue board so the queue, the waits and the loyalty cards are right, and their totals show in Takings by barber, but they are left out of the shop's VAT. Their lines carry a Tax Rate of 0.
Waiting times are worked out from Arrived and Started, which must be on the same day. A walk-in who leaves before their turn is kept, as Walked out, with no Started time, so the queries can count them.
Stock is not counted by Data Files on its own: take a product off In Stock when you sell it, and add a delivery when it comes. In the sample this was done while the records were made.
A free cut on a rented chair costs the renter their price, so the shop credits it against the next week's rent: that is the line below nought on a Chair rent invoice.
Every record of a table prints from its template, so choose the visit, card, agreement or invoice you want before printing.

Starting with your own records

Start with Business, your shop's name, address, VAT number and bank details, which every receipt and invoice prints. Then Chairs, then Barbers on each chair (with Basis, and a renter's trading name, address and insurance), then the Services price list and the Products you sell. If you rent chairs, add a Chair Rentals record for each renter and print the agreement. Clients can be added as they give their details. Visits, their lines, loyalty cards, stock deliveries and rent charges come in as you trade.

Making it yours

Every change to the design is a numbered step in Data Files, so a change can be seen and undone.

Pay employed barbers commission: add a Commission Rate to Barbers and a query that takes it off each barber's takings by month.
Take a deposit for long bookings, such as a cut, beard and hot towel shave: add a Deposit field to Visits and take it off the receipt's total.
If a chair renter uses the shop's card machine, add a Paid Over field to Visits and a weekly query of what is owed to each renter, less their rent.
Send a text when a free cut is due: the query Due a free cut has the phone numbers to copy into a message.
Rent a chair by the day instead of the week: add a Days field to Rent Lines and a daily rate to Chair Rentals.
For a salon or studio that rents rooms, rename Chairs to Rooms; the agreement and invoices work the same.
Show the wait on the board: add a calculated column to Queue board with the minutes from Arrived to now, using Now().

Questions people ask

How do I see who is next?: Run the query Queue board. It lists everyone waiting, in the chair and booked, today and for the next two days, in time order.
How long are walk-ins waiting?: Run Walk-in waits by hour for the last four weeks by hour of the day, or Walk-in waits by day for each of the last fourteen days. The waits are in minutes; Walked Out counts those who left.
Why is there no VAT on some receipts?: Those visits were on a rented chair. The renter is a separate business, not registered for VAT, so their cuts carry none. The note at the foot of the receipt, from the barber's Receipt Note, says so.
How do I print last week's rent invoices?: Open the print template Chair rent invoice and choose the invoices for that week; the query Chair rent by month and the Rent Charges form show their numbers.
A renter is behind with the rent. Where do I see it?: Run Chair rent due or print Rent owed. Each unpaid invoice is listed with the days overdue. The agreement says rent more than 14 days late after a reminder can end it.
Can I change the loyalty card to a stamp every visit, beard trims too?: Yes: tick Stamp on those services in the Services form. To make the eighth cut free instead of the tenth, change the 9 on the Loyalty card template and in your own counting.
How do I start with my own shop?: Open the sample empty. Fill in Business, then Chairs, then Barbers, Services and Products. Add Chair Rentals for any renters, and clients as they come in.

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