Rental booth stylists rent space, or booths, inside salons and beauty shops owned by someone else. The booths are rented for a fixed fee -- per week or month -- and the stylist who leases the booth must maintain her own books to reflect all expenses and revenue earned while working at the salon. In this type of business relationship, the owner of the shop is entitled to a percentage of the profit earned by the stylist. As such, it is important for rental booth stylists to understand how to do bookkeeping accurately.

Things You Will Need

  • Ledger

  • File folders

  • Calculator

Select an accounting method. Two types of methods exist: cash and accrual accounting. Determine which method is better for your business as a rental booth stylist. In the cash accounting method, you record your income as you get paid or receive cash from clients and customers. In the accrual accounting method, you record transactions as they occur, regardless of when you get paid for them.

Set up a ledger, either in hard copy form or electronically on your computer. The ledger is the bookkeeping essential that lists all the debits, credits and transactions you must keep track of to determine your cash flow as a stylist. Ledgers should be created on a spreadsheet so that it is easy to line up figures and keep the numbers organized on the page.

Create file folders to keep your transactions, payments and receipts in order. Such documents may be mandated from the owner you are renting the booth from. As a renter, you might be obligated to furnish the copies of your transactions to the owner on a monthly basis, so that he may determine the percentage owed to him. Label the file folders, if you keep more than one.

Make a list of the expenses that you have as a rental booth stylist, starting with the amount of money it costs to rent the booth. From there, determine what other costs you have to incur as a stylist, such as inventory expenses for salon products or the cost for attending additional training.

Keep track of the services you provide as you render them. Write down each client's name, as well as the total amount she pays you at the end of the styling service. Add this to the ledger, under profits or revenue, so that you can balance the books. Use a calculator to help you determine the totals and deficits.

Develop a cash flow statement or report that depicts how much money you earned versus how much money you expensed. Determine the profit to see how successful you are as a rental booth stylist.