2025: Aura Year in Review

As we look forward to the innovations of 2026, it’s a great time to celebrate the many achievements of 2025. Our team has been busy with multiple product launches and enhancements, plus a treasure trove of educational resources designed to uplift and empower our community of salon professionals. Let’s take a closer look at our major milestones, including the introduction of exciting new tools, essential feature enhancements, and valued partnerships. Together, we’re shaping the future of the beauty industry in ways that will resonate for years to come!

Booking Features

Online Booking Requests: Easily view and manage all appointment requests submitted through online booking when providers are set to “Requests Only” on their profile. This centralized list streamlines manual booking by consolidating all pending requests.

Appointment Copy & Paste: Streamline the booking process by copying and pasting existing appointments.

Smartbooking Help Text: Help text displays in hours and minutes for services over one hour.

Client Management

Check-In List: The printed check-in list includes the client’s service, last purchase, most recent formula, and next appointment.

Referral Assignments, Redemptions & Reporting: New client referral credits and existing client rewards can now be applied at checkout.

Display Referrals in the Client App: Clients can view their referrals and total credits earned from their wallet.

Loyalty Points Export: Export a master list of current loyalty points per customer.

Payment Solutions

PAX Terminal: Salons using AuraPay can purchase PAX devices to enhance the payment experience.

Custom Pay Type Enhancements: Users can now add a “reason” when using a custom pay type created by the salon.

Tippy Integration: Partnership with Tippy for a cashless tipping experience.

Tippy Enhancements: Added flexibility for clients with a simplified tipping experience across all payment methods.

All payment types — including card, cash, check, gift card, and express pay — are now fully compatible with Tippy.

Non-card payment options will no longer appear grayed out when Tippy is active.

Per Tippy’s clarification, clients can pay for services using cash, check, or express pay, while still leaving a tip via Tippy (card-based tip).

Tip Jar Functionality Update: Allows simultaneous use of both Tip Jar and Tippy, giving businesses more options for managing gratuities.

AuraPay: Credit Card Updates:

Manual Refunds: Owners and Managers can restrict access to the Manual Refund button.

$0.01 pre-authorization on new credit cards added to Aura.

Access to stored customer cards across multiple locations.

Collect deposit with a self-pay: When booking apt; no need to take a credit card over the phone.

Canadian Payments: We now take seamless payments for Canadian customers through AuraPay.

Inventory Management

SalonInteractive: Product Catalog, Syncs, and Purchase Orders: Download products from SalonInteractive’s product catalog with daily syncs to Aura inventory.

Inventory Count Form Updates: Inactive products are now hidden if they have a zero on-hand quantity.

Reporting and Analytics

Department & Level Filters on Reporting: Filter employee sales reporting by department or level across various reports.

Referral Credits Filter: Filter referral discounts in the discount report.

Punch Clock Hours Report: Reflects clock-in time if an employee is currently clocked in.

Manual Credit Card Totals: Users can view the Manual Credit Card Total at the bottom of the manual credit card section in the Sales Report.

Tip Report Revamp: Improved transparency and reporting accuracy for payroll and accounting teams.

Added a dedicated “Tippy” column to the Tip Report.

Tippy tips are now displayed separately from standard (in-house) tips.

The report provides a consolidated, clear view of gratuity sources for each service provider.

Communication and Marketing

SMS Usage Stats and Alerts: Monitor SMS usage to provide a clear view of their communication volume, with alerts when they reach 90% of the monthly limit.

2025 Releases by Date

January 8, 2025

May 7, 2025

September 24th, 2025

October 28th, 2025

November 20, 2025

Coming in 2026

Look forward to walk-in/waitlist enhancements, new partner integrations to simplify reporting and accounting, new payment options to allow customers more flexibility, and more.

New Partnerships in 2025