In this guide 6 sections
Before moving off a phone diary, list every promised date with its advance and balance. Pull trial notes and reference photos out of the chats. Write down packages, travel charges and your assistants, and decide who enters enquiries. Then tick the loaded dates against the old diary before trusting the new calendar.
Count every date you have promised
Dates hide in three places: Instagram messages, WhatsApp and the phone calendar. Go through all three and list every booked function. Note the bride, the venue, the call time and the functions she wants.
Mark each date as held or confirmed. A confirmed date has an advance against it. A held date does not. Each one needs a decision before the season starts.
Pull trial notes and photos out of the chats
Reference photographs and trial notes are the hardest records to rebuild. They sit deep in chats with the bride, her sister and sometimes her mother. Save them against the booking now, while you still remember whose they are.
Write down the shades, base, lashes, hairstyle and products agreed at each trial. Whether it was HD or airbrush matters too. At four in the morning, nobody should be scrolling.
Write down packages, advance terms and travel charges
Most artists price by habit. Software needs the habit written as rules. List what you charge per function for the bride, and for each family member.
Advance and cancellation terms belong on the same page. So do travel charges for venues across the city and outstation work. Whatever is not written cannot be set up.
- Bride rate per function
- Family and bridal party rates
- Advance amount and when the balance falls due
- What happens to the advance on cancellation
- Travel charge by distance, and outstation stay
List your team and who enters what
Name every assistant, hairstylist and saree draper you call regularly. Note who works only with you and who also takes dates from other artists in the same season, because those are the people who may already be promised elsewhere. Clashes come from the second group.
Then decide who enters enquiries. If brides reach you on Instagram, someone still has to type the enquiry in. Agree whether that is you, a desk or one trusted assistant.
Check the move before the season starts
Move in a quiet month, not the week before muhurtham dates. Load the bookings, then sit with the old diary and tick each date against the new calendar.
Keep the diary until the first busy weekend has passed. Two records for a short while is safer than a missing bride. Then retire it.
- Every confirmed date appears once, with its advance
- Every balance matches what the family was told
- Trial notes open from the booking on a phone
- Assistants see only the bookings they are on
Booking move-over checklist
Give every promised date its own line, with columns for bride, functions, venue, advance received, balance due, trial notes found and assistants named. Tick each row once it appears correctly in the new calendar. Untouched rows are what still needs finding.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Can brides book themselves from my Instagram?
No. Enquiries come by call, Instagram or WhatsApp, and you or your desk enter them. A date is never blocked for someone you have not spoken to.
Is software too much for a makeup artist working alone?
For a freelance artist with a few bookings a month, yes. A diary and UPI are honest enough. It earns its place once you run assistants or a studio.
I also run a makeup academy. Is that part of the bridal product?
Not in the bridal product. Students, batches and fee instalments belong in GullySystem’s Tuition and Coaching Centre Management Software, which is the one to look at for the academy.
Is there a link to Tally?
Not built in. Invoice and payment reports can be pulled for your accountant. A Tally export is priced separately if the studio wants one.