You’re looking around a demo shop. The calendar, clients and numbers all work the way they would in yours. Saving, texting and booking are switched off.
Main Street Barber Co.
Owner
How the app works, in plain words. 28 things.
Open steadychair.com/login on your phone and sign in with your email and password.
To install it, open Your account and follow Install the app on your phone: on an iPhone, Safari then Share then Add to Home Screen; on Android, Chrome's menu then Add to Home screen or Install app.
Change your own password under your name at the top, then Your account.
Forgotten it? The Forgot password link on the sign-in page emails you a link that lasts an hour.
Today. Who is in the chair, who is next, who is waiting, and the day's count. Start here.
Calendar. The day as a grid, one column per barber, a red line for now.
Front desk. The walk-in line, the same one the iPad at reception feeds.
Clients. Everyone who has booked or walked in, with their visits and notes.
More. Services, Team, Analytics, Grow, Reports, Payments, Settings, your account.
Under the date there are five views: Day, 3 day, Week, Month and Schedule. The date you are looking at carries across when you switch.
Day is one column per barber. 3 day and Week show one barber across several days, and you pick which one with the chips.
Month shows dots under each day for how full it is, and tapping a day lists what is on it. Tap the same day again to open it.
Schedule is the list: every booking in order, grouped by day, with a line where now is.
The calendar remembers the view you used last on this device, so the Calendar tab opens where you left it.
On a laptop the row of round buttons in the bar is the barbers. Everyone shows the whole shop; tapping a name shows just that barber.
On a phone the barber picker is the small menu in the bar, on every view. Pick a barber and they stay picked as you change views; pick All to see the whole shop.
With one barber picked you can swipe between days. With everyone shown the columns slide sideways instead.
On a phone the calendar fills the screen: a slim bar at the top with the date, the view and today, and the grid under it down to the tabs.
The tabs along the bottom are the way out, and the Calendar tab is the way back in.
Turn the phone sideways and every barber fits on one screen.
Swipe left or right to move: one day in Day, three in 3 day, a week in Week, a month in Month.
The arrows at the top do the same thing, and Today always brings you back to now.
Tap the date itself for a small month, and pick any day to jump to it.
Tap any empty space in a barber's column. The sheet opens with that barber and that time already chosen.
Type their name and number. If they have been in before, they come up as you type, so you do not make a second record of the same person.
Add their email and they get a confirmation and reminders. Without one, nothing is sent and the booking still stands.
Tap the booking. The sheet has everything you can do with it: mark it done, mark a no-show, move it, or cancel it.
Moving it offers the open times on the day you pick. The old slot opens up straight away.
The client can do it themselves from the Change or cancel link in their confirmation email.
Got it wrong? Undo is on the same sheet, and it puts the booking back the way it was.
1. Open Today. It says who is next and who is in the chair.
2. Somebody walks in: they put their name on the iPad, or you add them on Front desk. Seat them when a chair opens.
3. A cut ends: open the booking and tap Came in · cash or Came in · card, or tap Done on the walk-in's card on Front desk. That is what records the visit.
4. Somebody calls: tap the slot on the calendar, type their name and number.
5. Somebody cannot make it: they use the link in their email, or you move it on the calendar.
Front desk is the line. Call the next person, seat them with a barber, mark them done when they leave.
The iPad on the counter runs the same line: open the kiosk link in Safari, Add to Home Screen, and turn Auto-Lock off so it does not sleep mid-shift.
Add /board to the end of the same address for the screen on the wall.
Seating somebody can be refused when that barber has a booking about to start. The line still moves and the shop is told why.
Clients is everyone who has booked or walked in, with their visits, what they have spent and any notes.
Two people on one phone number, like a parent and a child, are kept as separate records linked to the same number, so the history does not get muddled.
Edit details fixes a name, a number, an email or a note.
Clients, then Import, takes the export from Square, Booksy, Squire, FullCap or Vagaro, or any other CSV with names and numbers in it.
Names, numbers and emails come across. The visit history that comes with them is kept beside the client and labelled as imported, and it never counts as a visit here: those numbers are somebody else's claim, not something this shop watched happen.
An imported client has not agreed to marketing, so they are never in a campaign until they say yes themselves.
Getting started lists the steps, named after the app you picked when you set up.
1. Clients, then Import: upload your client list as a CSV. Each client comes over with their last visit, so regulars are recognized from their first booking here.
2. Bring your upcoming bookings across, from the bottom of the same page. Squire's Appointments export reads straight in, onto the right barber's calendar. From any other app, send Small Cove your upcoming bookings with the Help button and they bring them over.
3. Check your booking rules in Settings: how much notice, how far ahead, and when cancelling counts as late, so they match what your clients are used to.
4. When your old app stops taking bookings, turn on the switch that says so, We have turned it off, on the upcoming bookings page. Until then the bookings you brought over get no reminders from here, so nobody is reminded twice.
While your old app still takes bookings online, the same chair can be booked in both.
Switch Online booking off under Booking rules in Settings. Your booking page then tells clients to call or stop by, with your phone number, and Front desk keeps booking.
Switch it back on once the old app is off, and say so on the upcoming bookings page so the bookings you brought over get reminders.
SteadyChair is $50 a month per shop, month to month, cancel anytime. There are no booking fees for you or your clients.
Start it from Your plan in the menu. Change the card, see receipts or cancel on the same page. A cancelled plan stays on to the end of the month you paid for.
A shop that signed itself up opens its booking page to clients when the plan starts. Before that, Front desk can still book people in.
Running your ads and building your website are separate, and only if you choose them.
Ask them to look in spam or junk for an email from SteadyChair.
The screen that sent the invite also shows the link, so you can copy it and text it to them.
Or resend it from their card on Team. The newest email is the one that works. An older link says a newer invite was sent, and can email a fresh one to the same address.
A link works once and lasts 7 days.
Your booking page is steadychair.com/book/your-shop/your-location. Clients book in under a minute, with no account, no app and no booking fee.
The four places worth having it: your Instagram bio, the Book button on your Google Business Profile, your website, and the signature on the shop's texts.
The owner's Getting started list has it, and it can check your website for you.
Every booking with an email gets a confirmation, a reminder the day before and another two hours out, each with a link to change or cancel.
The shop hears about new online bookings, moves and cancellations by email, by text or both, whichever you switch on under Notifications in Settings. Each barber's own emails have a switch there too. Switch them off and nothing is sent; every booking still shows on Today and the calendar.
Texting is separate and needs a line of your own. Small Cove is setting that up. Until it is on, nothing goes out by text and the product says so rather than pretending.
Paste your Google review link in Settings once. After that, every barber gets a review button on a finished booking.
Tapping it opens Messages with the client's name and your link already in the message. You press send.
Without the link there is no button, rather than a button that sends something broken.
Or switch on Ask for a review on Grow, once the shop's texting number is set up. Each client then gets the text once, two hours after their cut, in the same words.
Team is who works here and when. Hours and breaks are per barber, per weekday.
Time off blocks a range, and it shows on the calendar as hatched so a gap is never mistaken for an opening.
Invite a barber and they get a link to set their own password. They see their own day, their own clients and no money unless you turn that on.
Each service has a name, how long it takes and what it costs. How long it takes is what the calendar draws and what the booking page offers.
A service can ask for a deposit or the full amount online, but only once payments are connected. Cash at the chair is always allowed and is never a worse experience.
Payments are optional. A shop can run entirely on cash and nothing is worse for it.
Connecting Stripe, or your own Square account, lets a service take a deposit or the full amount at the time of booking, and lets you charge a no-show if your policy says so.
Connecting Square also puts each card sale at the shop on the booking it paid for.
The money is yours. It goes to your account, not ours.
Grow is where the offers live, each one a switch and a plain sentence.
Last-minute openings: tell regulars about a gap today, at a discount you set.
Happy hour: a standing discount on a slow window, shown on the booking page.
Bring a friend: a referral link on every confirmation.
Loyalty: a stamp card, the tenth cut free or whatever you choose.
Win-back and rebook nudge: a note to somebody who has not been in, or who is due.
Ask for a review: the one-tap text, and an automatic ask for shops that want it.
Anything that goes out by text waits on the texting line. The card says so.
A campaign is a one-off or scheduled message: a promotion, a new barber, a change of address.
It goes only to people who said yes to offers, on the booking page, at the kiosk or at the desk. Booking confirmations and reminders still go to everybody, because those are about their own appointment.
Every offer email carries an unsubscribe link, and somebody who uses it stops getting offers and keeps getting their own confirmations.
An imported client list never counts as a yes.
Reports has one download per question: bookings, clients, where clients came from, best hours, services, team, and no-shows with the notice given.
Pick the date range at the top. Everything is in your own time zone.
The monthly report is one page you can read or print, for the month just ended, with what changed against the month before.
Every booking remembers how the person arrived: an ad, a search, your own link, or the front desk.
That is what lets the shop see which ads produced real haircuts, rather than clicks.
Small Cove runs the ads; the booking page proves who came from them.
Owner: everything, money included.
Manager: the shop's day to day, the team and the services, without the money screens.
Front desk: the line, the book and the clients.
Barber: their own day, their own clients, and marking their own cuts done.
Landing on a screen that says it is not part of your role is not a fault. The screen exists, it is simply somebody else's job.
Tap the button in the corner of any screen and say what happened. It carries the screen you were on, which is the half of a bug report people leave out.
It reaches Small Cove straight away. For anything urgent, text Logan.
