Everything in one place
Everything WPNeedleFlow does
From the first online booking to the signed consent form, the register, the nightly close-out and the artist payout — one WordPress plugin that runs the front desk, the shop floor and the back office. Every feature below is built and working in the current release.
Online booking
Take appointments while you sleep
A guided front-end widget that fills your calendar and collects deposits — with an availability engine that makes double-bookings impossible.
Guided booking
Multi-step widget
Location → service → artist (or “No preference”) → real open time slots grouped by day → details → payment. The location step disappears automatically when you run a single shop. Drop a “Book with this artist” button under any artist’s gallery and the flow locks straight to that artist.
No double-bookings
Availability engine
Per-artist, per-location weekly schedules, time-off and holiday closures. The slot picker and the final submit share one source of truth and lock per artist, so two customers booking the same minute cannot both get it. A manager can still deliberately double-book when you want to squeeze someone in — but an artist’s time off is a hard stop nobody can override.
Sell more per booking
Product add-ons
Offer aftercare and jewellery as add-ons during booking, priced and stocked from your catalogue. Variable products show their options and price range, and stock moves when the booking is paid.
Fair holds
Slot-hold timer
Unpaid online holds are released automatically after your hold window, so a stalled checkout never locks up a Saturday afternoon.
You decide, per service
Deposit, full payment, or nothing at all
Set each service to take a deposit, the full price plus tax, or no payment at all — a consultation can be free to book while a full sleeve takes $200 down. All of it runs through your own Square or Stripe account. A card that succeeds but drops before the booking confirms is reconciled automatically rather than left stranded between the two.
Balanced load
“No preference” routing
Round-robin assignment by your drag-order artist priority, with a wait-gap tolerance — it spreads demand fairly instead of piling it on whoever is fastest to fill.
One person, one record
Duplicate-account guard
A customer booking with an address that already has an account is asked to sign in rather than quietly creating a second one, with a password-reset option. They are never shown another account’s details.
Photos up front
Reference images
Customers attach reference photos at booking from a phone or a laptop. iPhone HEIC images are converted and large photos are resized in the browser, so an upload never fails for being the wrong format or too big.
The Studio Panel
Your whole shop, on one screen, without wp-admin
Staff never touch the WordPress dashboard. The Studio Panel is a full front-end app on your own site — a side menu, nine screens, and a lock button for when the desk is unattended. It runs on the counter PC, an iPad, or a phone.
The appointment book
Month calendar, drag to move
Every artist’s appointments in one grid, colour-coded, filtered by artist, service type or location. Drag an appointment to another day to reschedule and the customer is notified automatically — or switch to an agenda list on a phone.
Nothing missed
Inbox
Booking requests waiting on a decision, with accept and decline in one tap and a live count on the bell. Minors and unpaid deposits are flagged before you approve anything.
Walk up and go
Screen lock
Lock the panel to a single Studio screen so the front desk can take walk-ins without exposing client records. Unlock with a staff member’s own four-digit PIN, or any manager’s. It can also lock itself after a set idle time.
Right people, right screens
Four access tiers
Owner, manager, front desk and artist. An artist sees their own book and their own payouts; the desk sees the day; a manager sees the shop. Enforced on the server, not just hidden in the menu.
Client history
Clients screen
Search by name, phone or email. Every client card shows visit count and last visit, and opens straight into a new booking, their past work, or a ban with a reason if it comes to that.
Settings without wp-admin
Studio settings
Studio profile, logo, opening hours, booking rules, notifications, staff PINs and appearance — all from the panel. Payment keys and destructive actions stay in WordPress admin, where only an administrator can reach them.
Front desk & operations
Run the counter, not five apps
Everything the desk needs to book, check in, and keep the day moving when it stops going to plan.
Today at a glance
Front Desk board
The day’s arrivals with one-tap check-in, guardian and photo-ID capture, and consent. A loud red UNPAID badge flags anything with nothing collected; minors needing a guardian ID are flagged in red.
Book by phone
Staff-created appointments
A desk form creates auto-confirmed appointments, captures SMS consent, and can create a customer portal login on the spot. If the person already exists it says so first, showing you the matches, rather than making a second record.
When you are running late
Push the whole day back in one tap
Type how many minutes you are behind. Every remaining appointment that day shifts by that much, and each of those clients is texted and emailed their new time with a number to call — so nobody arrives to a full waiting room and nobody has to be rung round one at a time. More than two hours behind and it offers to spread the rest of the day across your other artists instead.
Self check-in
Check-in page & lobby screen
A tablet by the door lets clients check themselves in; a waiting-room display shows who is up next. Both are separate shortcodes you place wherever you want them.
Show the work
Finished-work photos
Photograph finished work from the appointment screen — camera or library, on any device — and see it again on the client’s profile next time they come in. Session notes and photos stay staff-only.
Type less
Scan an ID for the date of birth
Scan the PDF417 barcode on the back of a US or Canadian driver’s license or state ID with the device camera, and the date of birth fills itself in — no keying errors on the one field the law cares about. Nothing is uploaded to read it; the barcode is decoded in the browser.
Self-service
Customer portal
A My Account area where clients view appointments, cancel or request a reschedule inside your cutoff, sign consent, update their details and SMS consent, and re-send their confirmation.
Their calendar, always right
Per-artist calendar feed
Each artist gets a private subscription link that drops their appointments into Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook and keeps them current — without giving anyone a login.
Consent & compliance
The paperwork that protects you
Consent, minors, photo ID and text-message consent are the parts of this business that turn into a problem years later. They are handled properly, and enforced on the server where a customer cannot get around them.
Signed & stored
Consent forms with e-signature
Editable tattoo and piercing consent forms, signed on a tablet with a finger. Every submission is archived with the signer’s name, the time, and the IP address, and prints on one page for the file.
Minors
Guardian gate
An under-age online booking cannot complete without a guardian name, phone, consent and a guardian ID. A date of birth that cannot be read is treated as a minor, not waved through. Staff bookings handle the guardian in person and still flag the record.
Photo-ID privacy
IDs erase themselves after the appointment
A photo ID is held only as long as the appointment needs it. It is stored outside the public media library under an unguessable filename, visible only to staff who need it, and then erased automatically a set number of days after the appointment — you choose how many. Nothing accumulates, so there is no pile of customer IDs to lose.
Text-message law
A customer who texts STOP is actually unsubscribed
US law says that if someone replies STOP to a business text, the texts have to stop. Plenty of systems print the “Reply STOP to opt out” line and then never read the reply — the customer keeps getting messages, and that is the part that gets a business fined. Here the reply is received and the number is unsubscribed automatically, in seconds, with no one at the desk having to do anything. START opts them back in, and staff cannot quietly undo an opt-out by ticking a box.
Nothing sent twice
Delivery record
Every message is logged with its status, retries and any error, so “I never got a reminder” has an answer. Failures retry with a backoff; a reminder whose appointment has already started is not sent late.
Your data
Stays on your server
Bookings, clients, consent forms, photos and sales live in your own WordPress database. Nothing passes through us. There is no vendor to lose it, sell it, or hold it hostage at renewal.
Point of sale
A full register — and books that balance every shift
Sell products, custom items and gift cards, take any tender, and never trust a price from the browser: every total is recomputed on the server. Runs on the counter PC, an iPad or a phone. Close out with a Z-report that reconciles to the cent.
Fast entry, any screen
Touch catalogue & cart
Search by name, SKU or variant, or scan to add. Checkout splits into Order, Payment and Receipt tabs so staff work one step at a time on a small screen, with the running total and Record-sale button always in view.
Scan to add
Barcode & QR
A USB scanner, the device camera, or your phone as a companion scanner paired by QR code — no extra hardware to buy. Reads QR, EAN-13/8, UPC-A/E and Code-128/39, resolving your printed labels, SKUs and exact variant codes.
Cash, card, split
Any tender
Cash with quick-cash buttons and live change due, external card, on-device Square or Stripe charging, or gift card. Split a sale across several tenders, validated to the cent.
No double-charging
Deposit credit
Attach a booking with a paid deposit and apply it as a credit at the register — capped at the goods total and locked so the same deposit can never be redeemed twice, even from two tills at once.
Over-short control
Cash drawer X/Z
Open a drawer per location with a float; the bar shows cash sales and expected cash live; close with a counted total for a Z-report showing float, sales, expected, counted and over/short.
Full or partial
Refunds, staged or in one go
Refund any sale, in full or in parts over time. Stock is restored, a redeemed deposit is freed, gift-card value goes back on the card, and the card portion is refunded to Square or Stripe. A manager code can gate refunds and discounts.
Charged once
Safe to retry
If the network drops after the card is charged, pressing Record again does not charge a second time — the register recognises the same sale and tells the cashier the customer was not charged twice.
Close-out in your inbox
Nightly Z-report email
An optional automatic email of yesterday’s totals at a time you choose, to whoever should see it — and silent on a day with no sales.
Inventory & labels
Know what you have without a stock-take
Stock that moves by itself when things are sold, refunded, or used on an appointment — and printed labels that let anyone update a count with a phone.
Print and scan
Avery label sheets with QR
Print a sheet of labels, one per unit, each carrying a QR code that opens that exact item. Choose your Avery type, and skip the labels already used on a part-used sheet instead of wasting it.
One scan, done
Sold / received / returned
Scanning a label opens a screen with the item, its stock on hand, and three buttons. No spreadsheet, no training, and every scan is logged with who did it and when.
Options, not guesswork
Variants
Sizes, gauges and colours as real variants with their own price, SKU and stock. The register, the booking add-ons and the labels all understand them.
Before you run out
Low-stock alerts
A per-product or studio-wide threshold emails you once when something drops below it, and re-arms when you restock — so it warns you rather than nagging you.
What it is worth
Inventory reporting
Stock value, margin, and movement by day, week, month or all-time, with a low-stock panel and CSV export.
Aftercare that sells
Recommended products
The aftercare email can automatically show the products that match what the customer just had done, with your prices and images.
Gift cards
Gift cards that balance the books
Sell and redeem branded gift cards at the register with proper accounting — a liability, not phantom revenue.
One panel
Sell at the register
Add a gift card to any sale with an amount, an optional recipient and a personal message. Non-taxable and never discounted. Codes avoid characters people confuse for each other.
Designed, not plain
Branded card email
Buyer and recipient both get a designed card face — your logo, the amount, the code and the message — in a light or dark theme you choose.
As good as cash
Redeem anywhere
Use as a full tender or one line in a split payment, with a live balance check first. Partial balances carry forward, and two tills cannot spend the same balance twice.
Liability, not revenue
Proper accounting
A gift-card sale is booked as a liability and kept out of revenue, so it is never counted twice when the card is spent later.
Value protected
Refund behaviour
Value spent on a refunded sale goes back onto the card. Issued cards are never voided automatically — the customer’s money stands unless you void it deliberately.
Full control
Gift Cards screen
Outstanding balance across all cards, a searchable list, manual issue, adjust up or down, void, reprint, and re-send any card to any address.
Messaging
The follow-up you never get round to
Confirmation, reminder, aftercare and review request — by text when the customer has agreed to texts, otherwise by branded email. Written once, sent every time.
Your words
Message editor
Every message is editable with merge tags for the name, artist, time, studio and links, with a live preview of both the text and the email before you save.
Branded email
Not a plain grey box
Your logo, your accent colour, your footer — on confirmations, reminders, aftercare, gift cards, password resets and the artist’s own booking alerts.
Know the cost
Real text-message counts
The editor shows what a message will actually cost to send — counting the opt-out line, and warning you when a pasted character has quietly turned a one-part text into a three-part one.
Reviews
Ask at the right moment
A review request goes out a few days after the appointment, when they still like the work, with a direct link to your Google review page.
Staff alerts
Who needs to know
Artists get told about their new bookings and cancellations, in a proper branded email rather than a raw notification — and each artist can turn their own alerts off.
Keep it tidy
Log with automatic clear-out
The full delivery log is searchable, and can clear finished entries older than however many days you choose — never anything still waiting to go out.
Reports & payouts
Numbers you can hand to your accountant
Every sale, refund, tip and deposit lands in one ledger, and every report reads from it — so the register, the reports and the payout all agree.
The money
Sales & tax
Revenue, tax collected and tips by day, week, month, or a range you pick, filtered by location, artist or payment method — always net of refunds, so a refunded sale never inflates a total.
Pay your team
Artist payouts
Per-artist retail commission at a global or per-artist rate, plus tips and total owed, with refunds already clawed back. Export to CSV and pay from it.
Where it comes from
Trends
Busiest days, service mix, and how the shop is tracking over time — grouped from the same ledger, not from a sample.
Prove it
Exports
Sales, transactions, payouts and inventory all export to CSV for your books, with the same filters you were looking at on screen.
More than one shop
Two shops, or five, at no extra cost
Locations are not an upsell here. Every location has its own hours, holidays, tax rate, phone number and time zone, and the license price does not change.
Each shop, its own clock
Per-location time zones
Availability, reminders and reports are all calculated in each shop’s own local time — so an artist working across two time zones cannot be booked into the same hour twice.
Each shop, its own rate
Per-location tax & drawer
Tax rate, cash drawer and float are per location, and a cash sale lands in the till of the shop it was rung up in.
Closing one down
Move a shop’s work safely
Closing or merging a location walks you through moving its upcoming appointments to another shop, choosing whether to keep the clock time or the customer’s slot, and telling every affected customer with a way out if the new shop does not suit them.
Staff across shops
Per-location schedules
An artist can work Tuesdays at one shop and Fridays at another, with different hours at each, and the booking widget only ever offers what is really available.
Switching over
Bring your bookings with you
Moving off another system is the reason most studios put this off. It is a wizard, it shows you what it will do before it does it, and it can be undone.
Upload your export
Export your customers and appointments from Booknetic as CSV and upload both files.
Map your services and staff
Match each of their services and staff to yours, create the missing ones, or skip what you no longer offer. Your choices are remembered for next time.
See it before it happens
A dry run reports exactly what will be created, reused and skipped — including customers who already exist, so nobody gets a duplicate record.
Import, silently
Nothing is emailed or texted to anyone during an import. Your customers do not get a wave of confirmations for appointments they booked months ago — but future appointments still get their reminders.
Undo if it is wrong
Every import is recorded as a batch and can be rolled back exactly, removing only what it created.
Where it runs
Counter, iPad, phone
The shop floor is not a desk. Every screen is built for a finger as well as a mouse, and measured on real device sizes rather than assumed.
The counter
A full-width appointment book, register and reports on the desktop machine at the front desk.
iPad
Intake, consent signing and the register on a tablet, with touch targets sized properly and fields that will not make the page jump when tapped.
Phone
Artists check their own book, add photos of finished work, and use the phone as a barcode scanner for the register. Installable to the home screen.
One plugin. Your whole studio.
Everything above, for one flat annual license — unlimited staff and locations.