How do you track groomer commissions without doing it by hand?
Short answer
Commission should be calculated at the moment of sale, from the price the customer actually paid, and it should be visible to the person who earned it. Argus gives each groomer a rate, lets you cap the rate per service, calculates commission on the discounted line total, splits it with an assistant when two people worked one dog, and shows both the manager and the groomer the effective percentage that really applied after caps and discounts.
Why commission is where salon admin actually goes wrong
Most grooming salons pay some or all of the team on commission, and most calculate it at the end of the week or month from a list of sales. That is slow, and worse, it is arguable — a groomer who thinks they earned more than the sheet says has no way to check, and you have no way to show them.
Three details cause almost all real disputes: whether a discount comes off the commission base, what happens when two people worked one dog, and whether a rate quietly changed. Argus answers all three at the moment of sale and keeps the answer.
The calculation, in full
- Each team member has their own commission percentage
- A service can carry a maximum percentage that caps any rate above it
- The base is the line total after its share of the order discount
- Consumables can be included in the base or excluded — a salon-wide policy
- An assistant's share divides that commission; the total pool does not change
- Tips are split between whoever served, and stay out of the commission base
An order-level discount is spread across the lines in proportion rather than landing entirely on one, so every earner's share reconciles to the penny against the total you actually took.
The effective percentage — the number that ends arguments
A groomer on 40% who sees 34% on their payout will assume a mistake. Argus stores the base it used on every line, which means it can show the effective percentage that really applied after caps, discounts and assistant splits — to you on the earnings report, and to them on their own page.
When a service cap is what lowered a rate, the breakdown says so, and only when the cap actually applied. Each receipt also describes its own basis in plain words — “service + consumables, after discount” — so a sale from six months ago is explained the way it was genuinely worked out.
See it before you take the money
On the appointment itself, before checkout, Argus shows the commission pool, flags a capped rate, and lays out what the groomer and the assistant will each earn. You can adjust the assistant's share and watch both numbers move.
Afterwards it is all reportable: commission, tips and payout per person for any date range and any branch, with a click through to that person's individual sales, and an Excel export carrying the commission percentage and amount on every line.
More detail: checkout & commissions and earnings & reports.
Related questions
- Is commission taken before or after the discount?
- After. The base is what the customer actually paid for that line. A discount you chose to give is therefore shared, rather than falling entirely on your margin — and because each sale stores the basis it used, a later change of policy never rewrites an old payslip.
- Can I pay a different rate on a low-margin service?
- Yes — set a maximum commission percentage on that service. Whatever an individual groomer's rate is, that service is capped, and the earnings breakdown shows the capped rate explicitly so it does not look like an error.
- How does it work when two people groom one dog?
- Add an assistant to the appointment and set their share with a slider, from 20% to 70%, defaulting to 30%. The commission pool is unchanged — it is divided between the two. Each of them sees their own share and their own effective percentage.
- Do tips count toward commission?
- No. Tips are split equally between the staff who served on that sale and are tracked separately, so a payout is commission plus tips rather than commission on top of tips.
- Can my groomers see their own numbers?
- Only if you switch it on — staff visibility of earnings is off by default. Enabled, each person sees strictly their own commission and tips, never a colleague's and never the salon's totals.