Every massage shop owner has seen this: on Friday night customers wait in the lobby because there are not enough therapists, while on Tuesday afternoon three or four people sit scrolling their phones all shift. Shift schedules are usually set by feel ("weekends are busy, weekdays are quiet") and left unchanged for months. This article shows how to read reports by shift and by therapist to answer a more concrete question: how many people does each shift need next week, and who should work which shift.
Three reports, each answers one question
Ordersys has three places to read numbers, and each answers one part:
| Report | What it shows | Use it to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Shift closing report | One row per shift: who opened it, who closed it, opening cash, closing cash, cash difference, revenue by payment method, quantity of each service sold | Which shift earns, and which services each shift sells |
| Sales report by period | Choose today, this week, last month or a custom date range; filter by branch and by room area; view by service or by staff | Which room areas are busy, which services sell in the period |
| Commission report | Each therapist, each service performed, and the matching commission | Who did how many sessions, and which services |
One report on its own is easy to misread. A night shift with high revenue may simply have had one customer buy a prepaid card. A therapist with low commission may just always work the quiet shift. Only by putting the three tables side by side do you see the cause.
Reading by shift: separate prepaid card sales first
Open the shift closing reports for the last four weeks and line up shifts of the same type: all Monday mornings, all Friday nights… Comparing a night shift with a morning shift says nothing.
Before deciding which shift is busy, take out the money from card and treatment package sales. A customer buying a ten-session card makes that shift look very busy, but the therapist only did one session. Ordersys records each session when the customer uses it, so to know how busy a shift really was, look at the number of services performed in the shift. The total money collected does not tell you that.
Three signs worth noting:
- Shifts with many long services (body, hot stone): each session holds a person and a room for a long time, so the shift needs more people even if customer numbers are not high.
- Shifts with many short services (foot massage, neck and shoulder): customers arrive in bursts, so you need people who can take customers quickly, not more VIP rooms.
- Shifts that always have only a few sessions: candidates for one fewer person, or for an off-peak offer.
Reading by room area and by therapist
Filter the sales report by room area (standard rooms, couple rooms, VIP) for the same period. If the VIP area is often full on night shifts while standard rooms sit empty, do not rush to add therapists. The problem may be a shortage of the room type customers want, not a shortage of people.
For each therapist, the commission report shows how many sessions and which types of service each person did. Only compare people on the same shift, and look at the type of service, not just the total money. Therapists who can do hot stone or acupressure should be placed on shifts where many customers book those services.
From numbers to next week's shift schedule
Set aside about half an hour each week and work in this order:
- Fix the comparison period: the last four weeks, same branch. Leave out Tet week and closed weeks.
- Rank shifts by number of services: shifts with many long sessions at the top, shifts with only a few sessions at the bottom.
- Set staffing by group: add one person to top-group shifts, remove one from bottom-group shifts or merge two quiet shifts into one. Change only a few shifts each week.
- Match people to shifts: therapists who can do long services go to shifts with many long sessions; new staff go to busy short-session shifts, working alongside experienced staff.
- Next week, open the same reports again: did the shift that gained a person do more sessions, did the shift that lost a person make customers wait? If nothing improved, change it back.
This method only requires two things from the start: every service on the ticket must be assigned to the therapist who did it, and the cashier must open and close shifts consistently. Without either one, every report will be off.
Ordersys includes the shift closing report, the sales report filtered by room area, and a commission report for each therapist. See the massage shop management software (or the version for spas) and try it free for 7 days to run a full round of shift comparison. Read more: managing therapist shifts and avoiding padded hours and prepaid cards and treatment packages for massage customers.
Ordersys has editions for restaurants and for retail stores: checkout, stock, reports and e-invoices, with on-site setup and training.
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