Spa books built around memberships, product, and providers.
Outsourced accounting, bookkeeping, and tax for day spas, med spas, and wellness spas, from a licensed CPA. Books closed monthly, margin reported by service, provider, and location, on a flat fee.
The payroll tax you pay on tips can come off your income tax.
You pay 7.65% in employer payroll tax on every tip your staff reports. Since 2025, spas can claim it as a credit against income tax. A team reporting $200,000 in tips a year works out to a credit of about $15,000, and on a tipped team that alone can cover the bookkeeping and tax work.
It is claimed on Form 8846 with your return. I check for it on every free tax return review.
Where spa books go wrong.
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Memberships and packages booked as income
A client prepays for six massages or a monthly membership. Until the services happen you owe them, so the money is a liability. Gift cards work the same way.
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Product expensed when it arrives
Retail skincare, backbar, and injectables get expensed when the invoice lands. What sits on the shelf is inventory. Without counting it, you cannot see cost per service, expired product, or shrinkage.
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Provider pay that does not tie to the books
Therapists, estheticians, and injectors on commission, hourly, or 1099, often mixed. Paying commission on gross instead of net of product changes your margin, and classification decides who owes the payroll tax.
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Tips nobody reconciles
Card tips run through payroll and cash tips get reported, or do not. Unreported tips mean payroll tax you still owe and a credit you cannot claim.
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Medical services in the same books
If you offer injectables or lasers, many states require a physician to own that side. That usually means a professional corporation plus a management company, two sets of books with a fee between them.
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Sales tax on the wrong side
Retail product is usually taxable. Whether services are depends on the state, and the point of sale setup has to match.
What lands in your inbox every month.
Revenue and product cost by service line, from massage to facials to injectables, and revenue per provider hour.
Memberships, packages, and gift cards held as a liability until used, so each month shows what you earned.
Retail and backbar on hand, cost per unit, and expired product written off, reconciled to what your system says you used.
Pricing is on the packages page. Salons and barbershops have their own page.
Two free reviews before you hire anybody.
What spa owners ask me first.
- Do you work with day spas and med spas?
- Both. They share most of the accounting. Medical services add injectable inventory and, in many states, a second entity.
- Should my providers be W-2 or 1099?
- It depends on control. A therapist or injector working your schedule, in your rooms, with your product, usually looks like an employee. I review it against how they actually work.
- Can you help with the FICA tip credit?
- Yes. It is claimed on Form 8846 against the employer share of payroll tax on reported tips. I check whether you qualify and make sure it gets claimed.
- Do you work with med spas that run through an MSO?
- Yes. The medical practice and the management company keep separate books, the management fee gets documented, and the two reconcile every month.
- Do you work with my software?
- Yes. Whatever you run, from Boulevard to Zenoti to Mangomint, I work from its reports and reconcile them to what hit the bank.
- Do you handle more than one location?
- Yes. Each location gets its own P&L, and the rollup shows which one is carrying the others.
See what it would cost you.
Thirty minutes, a real price in writing, an honest answer on fit. Or send last year's return and I will review it free.