Everything you need to get moving.

Getting started

1. Choose Start free on taperdesk.com and create an account with your email and a password. You’ll need to agree to the Terms and Privacy Policy. Your 14-day trial starts without a credit card.

2. Open the verification email and click the link, then sign in again.

3. Setup asks for your business name and type (barbershop, hair salon, nail salon, spa, beauty studio, or independent professional), your first location, and your owner details. TaperDesk adds a starter service menu and uses words that fit your business type — for example Barbers and Chairs in a barbershop, Stylists in a hair salon, Technicians in a nail salon, and Rooms in a spa.

4. Your dashboard shows a Finish setting up your business checklist: business profile, hours, services, team availability, and booking rules. When the required steps are complete, choose Publish booking page. Each location is published separately.

Services

Go to Services to add, edit, or deactivate services. Each service has a name, category, duration, price, and optional buffer time. You can limit a service to specific providers and attach a resource (for example, a chair or treatment room) so it can’t be double-booked. Deactivated services are hidden from online booking; past appointments, receipts, and reports keep them. Cancellation windows and fees are set under Settings → Booking rules.

Team, roles, and invitations

Go to Team & Resources and choose + Add staff to invite someone. Enter their name, email, and role. Roles: Owner (everything, including billing and business deletion), Manager (operations, team, reports, settings), Provider (their own schedule and clients), and Front desk (calendar, walk-ins, clients, checkout). There is no limit on team members.

How an invitation works: the person receives an email with a secure link. They open it, sign in — or create a TaperDesk account — using the same email address the invitation was sent to, verify that email, and choose Accept invitation. They are not added to your team until they accept. Links expire after 7 days.

Under Roles, locations, and invitations you can Resend invite (the previous link stops working), Send new invite for an expired one, or Revoke it. Only the owner can change roles; owners and managers can assign locations. Deactivate removes someone’s access while keeping their history and reports, and flags their upcoming appointments for reassignment; Reactivate restores access. Set each bookable provider’s working hours and add time off from My availability or the calendar.

Online booking

Every location gets a booking link like taperdesk.com/book?shop=your-shop once that location is published. Share it on your website, Google Business Profile, or social profiles. Clients choose a service, provider (or “any provider”), date, and time, then enter their name, phone, and optional email. If your shop has cancellation or no-show fees, clients see your policy and must agree to it before booking. Clients receive a secure link to reschedule or cancel. Collecting deposits or card payments when clients book online is coming soon. Until then, cancellation and no-show fees are recorded as due and never charged automatically, and you should leave Deposit mode on No deposit — clients can’t book a service that requires a deposit online yet.

Calendar and recurring appointments

Use Calendar to create, move, check in, start, complete, cancel, or mark an appointment as a no-show. Availability checks provider hours, time off, service duration, and resources before saving. To book a standing appointment, choose Repeat (weekly, every 2 weeks, and so on) when creating it; you can later edit or cancel the remaining appointments in the series. Today / Floor shows what is happening right now.

Walk-ins and waitlist

Open Walk-in Queue to check in walk-in clients, see estimated waits, and assign them to the next available provider. Use Waitlist to keep track of clients who want an earlier opening and book them when a time frees up.

Clients

Clients holds each client’s contact details, visit and payment history, preferred provider, notes, tags, and message preferences. Search to find a client, merge duplicates, and update preferences, including email and text opt-outs. Clients are created automatically when they book online. For privacy requests, see Exporting your data and client privacy.

Checkout, payments, and refunds

Open an appointment or walk-in and choose checkout. Add services and products, a discount, and a tip; sales tax is added from your tax rate in Settings. Record how the client paid — Cash or Other (for example, a card on your own terminal) — and TaperDesk emails a receipt when the client has an email address.

Refunds: open the client, find the sale under Payment history, and choose Refund →. Return the money the same way it was paid (for example, from the drawer or your own terminal) first. The original sale is never edited; the refund is saved as its own record and shows in reports and Daily close.

Online card payments and deposits: coming soon. Taking card payments inside TaperDesk, or deposits when clients book online, is not yet available. The card option in checkout stays disabled until it is.

Inventory

Inventory shows retail products and stock levels; stock is reduced automatically when a product is sold at checkout. Owners and managers can add and edit products (name, SKU, price, cost, low-stock threshold), receive stock, and record manual adjustments with a reason; stock can never go below zero. Products at or below their threshold are marked Low stock, and Export CSV downloads the catalog for the current location.

Reports and daily close

Reports show revenue, refunds, tips, service mix, and provider performance for a date range, and can be exported to CSV.

Daily close: at the end of the day open Daily close, choose Close business day, enter the counted cash, and add a note for any variance. A closed day is never edited. If you find a mistake later, open the day under Close history and corrections, choose View, and record a correction with a reason; the original figures stay and the correction is listed with who made it and when.

Billing and subscription

Pricing is $49/month for your first location and $39/month for each additional location, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card required to start. While the Founding Shop offer is open, the first 100 qualifying shops pay $29/month for their first location for as long as the subscription stays continuously active. See Pricing and Terms, section 5.

The owner manages the subscription on the web at taperdesk.com: open Settings and use the Billing panel to subscribe, add a location, update the payment method, view invoices, or cancel. Subscriptions can’t be bought or changed in the TaperDesk mobile apps. Payments are processed by Stripe. If a trial ends without a subscription, the workspace becomes read-only and your data is kept. Billing questions: billing@taperdesk.com.

Locations

Add a location from Settings → Locations (owners with an active subscription; each additional location is billed at the additional-location price). Each location has its own hours, team assignments, services, booking page, and reports. To stop operating a location, use Close location under Close or reopen a location: online booking stops and all history and reports are kept. Reopen brings it back. Closing a location does not change your bill — reduce locations from the Billing panel when you are ready.

Notifications

Email: clients receive booking confirmations, reminders, reschedule and cancellation notices, and receipts by email when they provide an email address. Configure them under Settings → Notifications.

Text messages (SMS): coming soon. TaperDesk can record a client’s opt-in today, but text messages are not sent until carrier registration is complete.

Staff push notifications are available only in the TaperDesk Android app, once you allow notifications. Push notifications are not yet available on iPhone or in the web browser.

Mobile apps

TaperDesk works in any modern browser on phones, tablets, and computers at taperdesk.com. The Android app is on Google Play; an updated version is rolling out, so if the app won’t sign you in, update it or use taperdesk.com in your phone’s browser. The iPhone app is coming soon; until then, use taperdesk.com in Safari. Subscriptions are managed on the website only.

Account and security

Forgot your password? Choose Forgot password? on the sign-in page and we’ll email a reset link. Didn’t get a verification email? Sign in and choose Resend verification email, and check spam. Each person should sign in with their own account — don’t share logins. Invited team members must use the email address the invitation was sent to.

Exporting your data and client privacy

Export your business: the owner can open Profile → Business data, ownership & deletion and choose Download business export for a copy of locations, team, services, clients, appointments, sales, inventory, message log, and settings. Inventory and reports also export to CSV.

One client’s data: open the client and choose Privacy request. Download customer export gives you a file to send them. Anonymize customer removes their name, phone, email, and notes and stops all messages, while sale amounts and dates stay so your reports remain correct. Anonymizing cannot be undone.

Cancelling and deleting your data

Cancel your subscription on the web from the Billing panel in Settings, or email billing@taperdesk.com. Cancellation stops future renewals; you keep access until the end of the paid period.

Remove your user account from Profile → Remove my user account. This deletes your own login immediately but not the business: appointments, sales, and reports you worked on stay with the business. If you own a business, first transfer ownership (Profile → Business data, ownership & deletion → Transfer ownership) or delete the business.

Delete a business (owner only) from Profile → Business data, ownership & deletion. You’ll confirm with your password and the business name. This starts a 30-day grace period: online booking pauses, the subscription is set to end at the close of the billing period, and you can export data or choose Cancel deletion and keep my business. After that the business data is permanently deleted, and the owner’s login is removed too if it belongs to no other business. See Data deletion; privacy requests: privacy@taperdesk.com.

Contact support

Email support@taperdesk.com. Billing and subscription questions: billing@taperdesk.com. Privacy and data requests: privacy@taperdesk.com. You can also try the product any time in the live demo.