As we move ahead in 2025, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on the milestones and achievements of the past year. 2024 was a remarkable year for Aura Salonware, filled with innovative launches, team growth, and enhancements that have significantly impacted our community of salon professionals. Explore our major accomplishments and the new features and educational resources designed to empower your salon and elevate your business.

Team Growth

Last year, Aura experienced a significant growth spurt, effectively doubling the size of our team. As we continue to grow our customer base, we will expand as needed to ensure top-level service to you and your business.

New Launches

Email Marketing

In 2024, Aura introduced a game-changing email marketing feature to complement SENT text message marketing. This powerful tool lets you create personalized email campaigns from scratch or kickstart your creativity with our premade templates. By curating the perfect recipient list using various filters, you can ensure your email lands in the inbox of the most relevant audience, boosting client engagement and excitement.

New Reporting Options

Sales Comparison Report

The Comparison report provides an overview of sales performance, comparing the current year to the previous year. Owners and managers can gain valuable insight regarding sales performance year over year, identify growth opportunities, and make informed decisions to drive future success.

Retail to Service Report Update

View each employee’s ticket total on the Retail to Service Report.

Booking Report

Track the number of appointments booked in the salon and online per day and the number of appointments on the calendar each day.

Cancellation Updates

Cancellation Settings

Owners and managers can choose to pay service commissions on collected cancellation fees. Customize when guests can cancel an appointment from the client app.

Charge a Cancellation Fee

Your team can charge the guest a cancellation fee while canceling their appointment if the guest cancels after your cancellation cut-off. Guests who cancel online after the cut-off are not automatically charged the fee. However, the team can charge the guest from the new cancellation report.

Cancellation Report

The Cancellation Report now indicates which guests have been charged a cancellation fee. Your team members can also refund the fee collected and/or charge a fee to a guest who canceled online.

Tip Settings Management

Tip Presets

Owners and managers can customize the tip presets displayed on the ticket and when guests check out from the client app.

Tip Settings

You can also update your default AuraPay terminal tip presets to calculate based on service only or the ticket total.

Payments

Save Card on File from Terminal

For salons using AuraPay processing, we’ve introduced a feature that will make your life easier. You can now securely save your guests’ credit card information on file during checkout when running the card on the credit card terminal. This feature speeds up future transactions and eliminates the hassle of repeatedly asking for card details, giving you and your guests a stress-free experience.

Calendar Updates

Department Filter

You can now filter the appointment calendar by department.

Employee Filter

You can filter the appointment calendar down to more than one employee to view the selected employee schedules side by side.

Access Limitations

Reception Access: Booked & Paid Totals

As an owner, you can show or hide the location’s booked and paid totals above the calendar from Reception-level employees.

Employee Access: IP Restriction

You can restrict an employee’s access to Aura so they can only log in when connected to your network IP address.

Other Features

Employee ID

You can now assign an Employee ID number to an employee’s profile. The ID number will appear next to the employee’s name when you export the payroll report and punch clock hours report.

Today’s Appointments: Check-In List

From a list view, owners, managers, and receptionists can view and check in for today’s upcoming appointments. Select the purple circle on the desktop view or “Check In” from the mobile menu to access the check-in list.

Online Booking Sources

Configuring the referral sources in the booking report allows you to track the source of your online bookings. The system prompts clients to indicate how they learned about your business when scheduling an appointment online.

Thank You Text

If Social Buddy is disabled, owners and managers can still enter a Google review link by customizing the Thank You/Review text settings. Guests will receive an updated Thank You/Review text that bypasses the Social Buddy flow and provides the guest with your direct Google review link.

Ticket Fee Update

Create ticket fees for specific pay types and calculate ticket fees based on service, retail, or ticket total.

Transaction List Update

The client’s phone number and email address are now in the transaction list export.

Coming in 2025

Aura has many plans for 2025, including new integrations with SalonInteractive, Reserve with Google, and Aveda/Estee Lauder ordering. We will also enhance our referral program, email marketing, mobile functionality, and AuraPay, including adding Canada payments. There’s plenty more to come!

Educational Resources

Thank you for being an essential part of Aura as we celebrate a year of growth in 2024. We’re excited about the achievements that lie ahead in 2025!