Every salon has two sets of hours: the ones printed on the door and the ones the diary actually runs on. When the two drift apart, clients ring at 5:15 to be told the last appointment was 4:30, or turn up at 9 to a locked door because the first client is at 9:30. Neither is a disaster. Both cost you a little trust each time, and both are fixable in an afternoon.
Write down the real hours
Start from the diary, not the sign. For each day, note the earliest appointment you will actually take and the latest you will actually start. That is your opening and closing time for the purpose of anyone booking. If you arrive at 8:30 to set up but take nobody before 9, you open at 9. If the last cut starts at 5 and the door locks at 6, you close at 5 for bookings.
Do the same for each person if you have staff with different days. Then the salon's hours are the union: open when anyone is taking clients, closed when nobody is.
Decide what a late night is for
A Thursday late night exists to catch clients who work office hours. It only works if it is the same every week and if it is true. A late night that is sometimes cancelled when the book is quiet trains clients not to rely on it, and they stop asking. If you cannot commit to every Thursday, pick fortnightly and say so, or drop it.
Closed days are hours too
A day you do not open is information clients want. Say it plainly on everything: closed Sunday and Monday. A profile that lists Tuesday to Saturday and says nothing about the other two days leaves people guessing, and some of them will guess wrong and ring.
Put the same hours everywhere
Your door, your Google profile, your social bios, your booking page and whatever answers your phone should all say the same thing. Pick one place as the source of truth and update the others from it. For Glow Line users the Receptionist page is a natural source: the hours there are what the assistant tells callers, and the booking page sits beside it. Change them there first, then copy to the door and the profile.
Public holidays
Hours by weekday do not know about public holidays, and neither does most software. Before each one, decide: open, closed, or short day. Then change that day's hours or add a line to your notes that says closed Monday 8 June for the public holiday. After the holiday, change it back. Putting a reminder in your calendar the week before saves the phone call from the client standing outside.
Holidays and closures
A week away is the same problem on a bigger scale. Change your hours to closed for the days you are gone, add a note that says when you reopen, and tell regulars by text a fortnight out. If you leave your receptionist line on, callers will hear the closure from the hours and can still request a time for after you are back, which is a better outcome than voicemail.
Hours for bookings versus hours for walk-ins
A barber may take walk-ins until 6 but stop taking phone bookings after 5 to leave room for them. That is a legitimate policy and it belongs in your notes, not in your hours: open until 6, phone bookings until 5, walk-ins welcome after. A caller at 5:30 then hears the truth and can decide whether to come down.
The last appointment
The most common confusion is the difference between closing time and last appointment time. If you close at 6 and a blow dry is 45 minutes, the last blow dry starts at 5:15, and the last colour started at 3. Your menu durations tell you this. When you set hours for bookings, think about whether to set the close time as the last start or the lock-up, and say which in notes. Last appointments start one hour before close is a sentence a receptionist can say.
Check the drift once a season
Hours drift because life does. A staff member changes days, a school pickup moves, you stop doing Saturdays in winter. Four times a year, open the diary and the profile side by side and make them agree. It takes ten minutes and it saves the slow leak of clients who tried once, found the door shut, and did not try again.
The hours you publish are a promise. Keep it small enough that you can keep it.