How to best track tattoo artist pay
Artist pay is where studio relationships break. Not because anyone is dishonest, but because the numbers are reconstructed after the fact from receipts, memory, and a terminal report that never quite matches the cash in the drawer. The fix is not a better spreadsheet. It is deciding the rules once and recording every dollar at the moment it comes in, attributed to a person. Here is the system we recommend, whatever software you use.
Pick one pay model and write it down
Most shops use one of three models. A percentage split, commonly 50/50 to 70/30 in the artist's favour, where the studio's share covers rent, supplies, and the front desk. A chair rental, where the artist pays a fixed weekly or monthly amount and keeps everything else. Or a hybrid: a lower split for walk-ins the shop brought in, a higher one for clients the artist brought themselves. Any of these can work. What does not work is a different verbal deal with each artist that nobody has written down. Put the model, the percentage, and what it applies to in writing, per artist, and have both of you sign it.
Decide what the split applies to
The percentage is the easy part. The arguments come from the edges:
- Tips. The standard answer is that tips are 100% the artist's. Say so explicitly, including tips that come in on a card and get paid out later.
- Card processing fees. Either the studio eats them or they come off the top before the split. Both are defensible. Mixing them is not.
- Deposits. A deposit is part of the session price, so it is split when the session happens, not when the deposit was paid. A forfeited deposit from a no-show is the hard case: decide now whether it is split or kept by the studio.
- Retail. Aftercare and merch sold at the counter usually carry a small commission, or none. If an artist sells it, attribute the sale to them so you can pay it.
- Supplies. If the studio supplies needles and ink, that is what the studio's share is for. If artists buy their own, their percentage should be higher. Do not do both.
Record every payment at the counter, by person and by method
Each checkout should capture who did the work, what was charged for the service, what was charged for retail, the tip, and how it was paid. If a client pays part on debit and part in cash, record both tenders with their own tip. This sounds pedantic until you try to reconstruct a Saturday from a terminal report that shows one $540 transaction and an artist who swears $100 of it was a tip.
Cash is the leak. A cash session that does not get rung in is invisible to everyone, including the artist who expected their share of it. The rule has to be that nothing leaves the counter without being recorded, and the enforcement is the daily count.
Close every day and compare to the terminal
At the end of each business day, count the cash, pull the batch from the card terminal, and compare both to what the system says you took by tender. A $20 variance on cash is a miscount. A $200 variance is a session that was not rung in or a refund nobody recorded. Write the variance down, then lock the day so nothing can be edited afterwards. Pay is calculated from locked days, which is what makes it trustworthy.
Keep a running balance instead of a pile of slips
Once a day is closed, each artist's share of that day's services and all of their tips should be posted to a ledger as money the studio owes them. Payouts come off that balance when you actually pay, whether that is weekly by e-transfer or daily in cash. If an artist owes the studio for a chair fee or an advance, that goes on the same ledger in the other direction. The question "what do you owe me?" is then answered by a number, not by an afternoon with a calculator.
Let artists see their own ledger. Transparency removes most of the suspicion, and it moves the conversation from "I think you shorted me" to "this Thursday session is missing", which you can actually check.
Pay on a schedule and keep the records
Decide a payday and stick to it. Weekly is common and keeps balances small. Keep the closed-day snapshots and the ledger history: they are your defence in a dispute and your source for tax reporting on both sides. If an artist leaves, their final balance should be a number you can show them, not a negotiation.
Where Inksaro fits
Inksaro records all of this as a side effect of running the day rather than as extra work. Checkout attaches the artist to the service line, lets you take up to two tenders with a tip on each, and credits a paid deposit against the balance. Walk-in retail sales can be attributed to a staff member for commission. Each location closes its day by comparing Inksaro's totals per tender against the terminal batch, recording the variance, and locking the day.
Closing posts every artist's service share and tips to the staff payouts ledger, where the studio sees a running balance per person and artists can open their own. Payouts and paybacks are recorded against that balance. Split rules are set per staff member, support staff are excluded from splits automatically, and reports break revenue down by staff, location, category, and payment method from the same locked snapshots, so end-of-day and the monthly report always agree.