Spa management software promises a lot — bookings, payments, staff, inventory, loyalty, all in one. Most of those promises hold up in the demo. They start breaking when you run the actual workflow for two weeks with real staff and real customers.

Use this checklist before you sign anything longer than a month. The questions below come from spa owners who switched vendors after the first one didn’t survive contact with reality.

1. Does it work offline?

The single most important question for any service business. Spa front desks lose 30-60 minutes of productive time per week to internet outages on average. If the software stops when the wifi stops, you’re paying for a productivity tax.

Real test: in the demo, ask the vendor to unplug their ethernet for two minutes and take a booking. If they refuse or get visibly nervous, move on.

2. Can a single visit have multiple therapists?

Spa visits are rarely 1:1. A facial-then-massage flow involves two therapists per guest. A couples’ package can involve four. The system needs to model this natively — not by faking it with two separate bookings.

Look for: explicit “therapist per service” assignment within a single visit, with tip and commission allocation per therapist.

3. How does it handle packages and prepaid services?

A spa package is a bundle: 10 facials for the price of 8, or a 90-minute “deluxe day” combining four services. You need to:

Sell the package once (one transaction, full payment up front)
Redeem services individually over weeks or months
Track remaining sessions per customer

If the vendor says “you can do this with promotions,” they don’t support packages.

4. Are tip tracking and commission reports per-therapist?

In tip-economy markets, the difference between a happy and a leaving therapist is whether payroll correctly reflects their tips. The system should:

Capture tips per therapist (not just per bill)
Roll up into a monthly per-therapist payout report
Handle split tips when a guest had multiple therapists in one visit

5. Does it print tax invoices in YOUR country’s format?

Tax-invoice rules vary country by country. A POS that prints American IRS receipts won’t satisfy Vietnam’s MoF requirements, and vice versa. Most global POS vendors support a handful of regions; ask for sample output for YOUR jurisdiction before you commit. REENG supports Vietnam tax invoices out of the box and is expanding to more regions.

6. What thermal printers does it support?

Receipt printing is the most common Day 2 failure. The vendor’s drivers might support exactly one printer brand. Ask which printers are confirmed working, and if you already own a printer, get them to confirm it specifically.

REENG supports any printer compatible with QZ Tray (most ESC/POS thermal printers).

7. Membership tiers, gift cards, loyalty points — all three?

Different customers want different programs. A regular wants loyalty points. A friend buying a gift wants a gift card. A high-value customer wants VIP membership pricing. A system that only has loyalty points is half-built.

Therapists need to see their own schedule, their own commissions, their own tips. If the system has one “manager login” and that’s it, you’ll either share a password (bad for audit trails) or stop using half the system.

9. How are role permissions configured?

What can a receptionist do that a therapist can’t? Can a therapist void a paid bill (no — that’s a fraud vector)? Can a manager give discounts above the staff limit? The system needs role-based permission control out of the box.

10. End-of-day cash reconciliation?

Cash drawers go missing money for stupid reasons — bad addition, change errors, tip miscounts. The end-of-day report should reconcile expected cash (from receipts) against counted cash (from the drawer), with variance flagged.

11. What’s the data export story?

If you ever leave, can you export everything — customers, bookings, transactions, employees — to CSV in a few clicks? If the answer is “contact support and we’ll quote you a fee,” that’s a lock-in flag.

12. Is the trial actually free, with no card required?

Bait-and-switch trials that need a credit card up front have a 70%+ conversion rate by accident — most users forget to cancel. A vendor confident in their product offers a no-card trial because they expect you to convert by choice, not by oversight.

REENG offers 3 months free, no credit card. Use that trial period to run this entire checklist with your real staff and real data.

What to do next

Don’t sign a 12-month contract on a 30-minute demo. Pick the top 3 vendors, run a 30-day pilot with each, then decide. If you want to start your REENG trial today, signup is here — it takes about an hour from sign-up to running a real booking.