Run a Collaboration Between Two Stylists

A collaboration is one visit worked by more than one person: an assistant shampoos and blow-dries while the senior stylist cuts, or a colourist and a stylist split a long appointment.

Perceny models this properly. Each person gets their own ticket for their own work, the tickets are grouped, the client pays once, and each person's commission is calculated on what they actually did.

Do not fake it with two separate tickets and a client who pays twice. You lose the single receipt, the group total, and any hope of the reports making sense.

Start itCopy a link to this section

1. Start your own ticket first. Collaboration hangs off an existing ticket; Perceny will tell you "First, start a ticket to be able to collaborate" if you try it the other way round.
2. Open Collaborate on the ticket.
3. Select user to collaborate with: pick the person joining you.
4. Choose which tickets go into the collaboration. Each person's services stay on their own ticket.

Everyone in the group can see the group total and who is still working.

When the same guest has other services todayCopy a link to this section

A parent who comes in with two kids, each booked with a different barber, or a client booked for a cut with one stylist and colour with another, is one visit even when the bookings were made separately.

As they are bookedCopy a link to this section

Perceny joins the parts of one visit as they are booked, wherever each part was booked: the calendar, the online booking page, the kiosk (appointments and walk-ins) or the AI receptionist. When a new booking is for a guest, or someone in their family, who already has a booking that day that overlaps it, runs back to back with it, or starts within an hour of it, the bookings become one collaboration straight away. Nobody has to approve it, because the guest booked the visit.

If the visit already has a collaboration (a family booked together), the new booking joins it. Otherwise a new collaboration starts, owned by whoever has the earliest booking of the visit. A party that walks in together at the kiosk is already one collaboration; any bookings the guest or their family have around that time join it.

Left as they are:

• bookings more than an hour apart (the guest will likely pay in between; checkout still offers them, see below);
• a booking still waiting for its online payment or deposit, or already paid;
• a booking in a collaboration of its own that differs from the visit's (two collaborations are never merged), and any collaboration a payment was already taken on.

To turn this off, go to Features Configuration → Ticket Settings → Group a Guest's Same-Visit Bookings.

At checkoutCopy a link to this section

When you open the payment step of checkout, on the dashboard or in the app, Perceny looks for the guest's other open tickets that day, with any professional. It also looks at the people in the guest's family (see the client's Family card), so a parent's checkout finds the kids' bookings too. If it finds any, a note appears under Collaborate:

"This guest has another service scheduled today. Include it in this transaction? Each professional keeps the credit for their own services."

Each booking is listed with its services, who it is with and the time. Click Include on one, or Include All, and it joins this ticket's collaboration: the guest pays once, and each professional keeps their own ticket and commission. Not Now hides the note for this checkout.

Not offered: tickets that are already paid, already in a collaboration, cancelled appointments, block times, and tickets that can no longer be changed.

The Approval setting below still applies: with it on, including another professional's booking sends them a request, and it joins once they approve.

One appointment or the whole collaborationCopy a link to this section

Most things you do to an appointment in a collaboration now ask first: Only this appointment or The whole collaboration.

• Mark as Arrived, Mark as Confirmed and Send Ready Notification, from the appointment details on the dashboard and in the app. They start on the whole collaboration.
• Mark as No-Show, on the dashboard and in the app. It starts on this appointment only.
• Confirm and Decline on a booking request that is waiting for your answer, from the appointment details, the AI receptionist's activity list, and the app. With The whole collaboration, every request of the group still waiting gets the same answer; bookings already confirmed are not touched.
• Reschedule, from the appointment, the edit form, or by dragging it on the calendar. With Only this appointment it moves alone, on the same day as the rest of the group.
• Cancel already lets you tick which appointments of the group to cancel.

Clients are asked too, worded for them (Only this booking or Everyone in the group):

• Checking in at the kiosk, with Mark as Arrived on their reservation page, or with I'm Here in the client apps (Perceny Go and the business's own app).
• Rescheduling, on their reservation page or in the client apps. Everyone in the group walks them through each appointment: the first one picks the new day and time, the others pick a time on that same day, and they all move in one go with what was already paid.
• Answering their reminder: I'm coming, I'm here or I'm not coming. Not coming starts on Only this booking, so a parent who cancels their own cut doesn't cancel the kids'. Declining only their booking takes it out of the collaboration; the rest of the group stays booked. A collaboration already paid by card can only be declined as a whole.

ApprovalCopy a link to this section

Whether the other person is added straight away depends on one setting:

Features Configuration → Ticket Settings → Approval required for collaboration.

• With it off, they are added immediately and told: "{name} has added you to a ticket collaboration."
• With it on, they receive a request: "{name} has sent you a collaboration request", and can approve or reject it. You are told either way.

Turn approval on if people have been added to work they did not agree to. Leave it off in a small shop where everybody is in the same room.

Booking a collaboration in advanceCopy a link to this section

Clients can split their services between stylists when booking online, at the kiosk or in the client apps (Perceny Go and the business's own app), and the appointment arrives already set up as a collaboration. They pick a stylist (or Any Available) for each service, then a time for each appointment on the same day, or one of the Suggested Times that seats everyone together or back to back. At checkout they can add the people they are booking for and mark which appointments are theirs: each person gets their own appointment, linked to the booker as family.

If you would rather they did not, turn on Disable Collaboration Appointments Online. Staff can still create collaborations from the calendar; only the client-facing path closes.

PayingCopy a link to this section

The group is paid once, not per person. When everyone has finished their part, the group is marked ready and the person at the desk collects:

"Your ticket collaboration for {amount} is ready to be paid, everybody has completed their ticket."

The client sees one total and pays it once. Behind that, each ticket keeps its own items, its own owner and its own commission.

How tips splitCopy a link to this section

A tip on a collaboration is divided by Tip Distribution on the Payment Settings tab. There is a separate Terminal Tip Distribution for tips the client chose on the card reader, because the two arrive by different routes and shops often want them handled differently.

Set both deliberately. "Split evenly" and "split by each person's share of the ticket" produce very different numbers when one person did an hour of colour and the other did a ten-minute trim.

How commission worksCopy a link to this section

Each collaborator's commission is calculated on their own ticket: their services, their price, their percentage, and any per-service custom commission. Nothing is averaged.

That is the reason to use collaboration rather than adding a second stylist's service to one person's ticket: on one ticket, one owner earns everything.

Leaving, cancelling and notificationsCopy a link to this section

• Someone can leave a collaboration; everyone else is told: "{name} has left the collaboration."
• The whole collaboration can be cancelled: "{name} has canceled the collaboration."
• These notifications, and the requests and approvals, are controlled by Collaboration Notifications in Communications. If your team says they miss collaboration requests, that is the switch.

Common problemsCopy a link to this section

"The kids' bookings did not join the father's when they were booked." They join only when they overlap, run back to back or are within an hour of his; a booking still waiting for its deposit joins at checkout instead. Check that Group a Guest's Same-Visit Bookings is on.

"Checkout did not offer the kids' bookings." Each child must be in the parent's family, or booked under the parent's own client record. Bookings already paid for, or already in a collaboration, are not offered.

"I cannot find Collaborate." You have not started a ticket yet, or collaboration options are hidden for your role.

"They never got the request." Check Collaboration Notifications for that person, and check whether approval is even required; with approval off there is no request, only an added notice.

"The tip went to the wrong person." Check Tip Distribution and Terminal Tip Distribution. A tip added on the reader follows the second setting, not the first.