Operator Documentation · TeamHaircut
Understanding the ORS Report Card
A plain-English guide to using the ORS Report Card — what each section means, how to read your results, and how to turn the numbers into action. No spreadsheet experience required.
Contents
Section 1
What is the ORS Report Card?
Every year, Great Clips corporate sends each franchisee an Excel workbook called the ORS Profitability Financial Review (ORS = Operating Ratio Study). It contains your full P&L for each salon, comparisons to system averages, performance benchmarks, and corporate recommendations. It is detailed, comprehensive — and almost impossible for a non-financial person to interpret.
The ORS Report Card takes that same Excel file and turns it into something you can actually use. Instead of rows of numbers, you get:
📊 A plain-English summary
One paragraph that tells the story of how your franchise performed — in language anyone can understand.
🏆 Salon report cards
Each salon gets an A through F grade based on profit margin, with a one-sentence diagnosis of its biggest strength or problem.
📈 Benchmark comparisons
Visual bars showing exactly where you stand vs the Great Clips system average and the top 25% most profitable franchisees.
💬 50 instant answers
Click any question and get a detailed analysis using your real numbers — no spreadsheet knowledge needed.
Who is this for?
Any Great Clips franchisee who receives the annual ORS workbook from corporate. It works for single-salon operators and multi-location franchise groups alike.
Your data never leaves your computer. This tool runs entirely in your web browser. When you upload your ORS file, it is read locally on your device — nothing is sent to any server, stored anywhere, or shared with anyone.
Section 2
Getting Started — Uploading Your File
You need one file: the ORS workbook Great Clips corporate emailed you.
What you need
Great Clips corporate sends the ORS workbook as an email attachment, typically in the first quarter of the year. It will be an Excel file (.xlsx) with a name like Your Name.xlsx or similar. If you cannot find it, email [email protected] to request a copy.
Step 1
Open the ORS Report Card
Click ↗ Open the Tool above, or use the link at /tools/ors/analyzer. Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox all work.
Step 2
Upload your ORS workbook
Click the upload area or drag your Excel file onto it. The tool only accepts the Great Clips ORS workbook format — it will tell you if the file is not recognized.
Step 3
Your dashboard appears instantly
Within a few seconds, your full financial report card loads. No login, no waiting, no sending data anywhere.
Step 4
Explore your results
Scroll through your dashboard, click questions to get instant analysis, use the revenue calculator, or enable AI chat for open-ended questions.
Using the demo?
The demo version loads immediately with fictional sample data — no upload required. Explore the full tool before uploading your own file.
Section 3
Understanding Your Dashboard
What each section of the report card means and how to read it.
The opening summary
At the top of your dashboard is an auto-generated paragraph that tells the story of your results. It covers four things: your total revenue and profit, where your margin ranks vs the Great Clips system, whether any salons are losing money, and your biggest growth opportunity. Read this first — it gives you everything you need to understand the rest.
The four headline numbers
Profit kept per dollar earned
Your profit margin — what percentage of every dollar of revenue you actually keep. System average is around 19.6%. The top 25% are above 29.4%.
Total profit this year
Combined operating profit from all your salons before taxes and owner distributions. This is what your franchise earned from operations.
Your system ranking
Whether you are in the top 25%, above average, or below average compared to all Great Clips franchisees who submitted financials.
Customers per week per salon
Your average weekly customer count compared to the system average. Low traffic is the most common reason salons underperform.
Note on color coding
Green numbers mean you are performing better than your organization average. Red numbers mean you are performing worse. The comparisons are always to your own org average, not the Great Clips system average.
Section 4
Your Salon Report Cards
Every salon gets a grade. Here is how the grades are assigned.
Each salon receives a letter grade based on its profit margin — how much of every revenue dollar it keeps as profit. This is the single best indicator of a salon's financial health.
| Grade | Margin | What it means | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 35%+ | Exceptional performer — keeping more than 35¢ of every dollar. These are your strongest salons. | Protect what's working |
| B | 25–35% | Strong — above the top 25% threshold of 29.4%. This is where you want all your salons to be. | Maintain momentum |
| C | 12–25% | Average to below-average. Profitable but leaving money on the table. Room to improve. | Identify the bottleneck |
| D | 0–12% | Technically profitable but barely. One bad month or unexpected cost could push it negative. | Prioritize improvement |
| F | Below 0% | Operating at a loss. The salon is costing you money every week it stays open. | Immediate attention |
Below the grade, each salon card shows four numbers: revenue, profit (in dollars), margin percentage, and average weekly customers. A thin color bar represents the margin visually. The one-line description at the bottom identifies the biggest strength or problem for that specific salon.
A salon losing money is an F, even if it's growing.
Growth in customers does not automatically mean improved profitability if costs are not controlled. The grade is based purely on margin.
Section 5
How You Compare to the System
Five key metrics shown visually against Great Clips benchmarks.
This section shows five horizontal bar charts. Each chart has three bars: your organization average, the Great Clips system average, and the top 25% most profitable franchisees. The benchmarks come directly from the ORS workbook that Great Clips corporate provided.
Profit per dollar earned
Your profit margin. Higher is better. Compare your bar to the top 25% bar to see how far you are from the best performers in the system.
Customers per week per salon
Your average weekly traffic. The gap between your traffic and the system average — in dollars — is often the single biggest profit opportunity.
Average price per visit
Your average ticket amount. Great Clips' system average is around $19.00. If you are above this, your pricing or upsells are working well.
Stylist pay as % of revenue
Payroll cost as a share of revenue. Lower is better. The system average is around 42%. If you are below that, you have a real cost advantage.
Minutes per haircut
Average haircut time. Lower is better — faster cuts mean more customers per hour with the same labor cost. The top 25% average around 14.8 minutes.
Section 6
Corporate Focus Areas
What Great Clips corporate identified as your priority issues — with direct links to their resources.
Great Clips corporate reviews your financial data and generates a list of priority focus areas based on how you compare to system benchmarks. These appear in the Executive Summary tab of your ORS workbook. The ORS Report Card displays them prominently, color-coded by whether they are a strength (green checkmark) or an area needing improvement (red exclamation point).
Each focus area is linked directly to the relevant Great Clips corporate resource — a scheduling guide, a training video, a PDF, or a tool on inSite — so you can immediately take action. These links require your inSite login (your Great Clips franchisee portal credentials).
Tip
If a focus area is marked as "better than the ORS average," that is good news — but do not stop there. The goal is the top 25%, not just average.
Section 7
Revenue Opportunity Calculator
See what small improvements would mean in real dollars across your entire organization.
This interactive calculator has two sliders:
Slider 1
Extra customers per week per salon
Drag this slider to model what happens if each salon added more customers per week. The tool calculates the additional revenue, the additional payroll cost those customers require, and the net profit impact — all annualized across your whole organization.
Slider 2
Price increase per visit
Drag this slider to model a price increase of $0.25 to $5.00 per visit. Since price increases require no additional labor, they flow almost entirely to the bottom line.
The three result boxes show: additional annual revenue, additional annual payroll (the cost of servicing more customers), and net additional profit. The calculation uses your own organization's averages — your actual average invoice, cuts per hour, and effective wage rate — not system averages.
How this works
More customers means more floor hours, which means more payroll. The calculator accounts for this automatically. The "extra profit" figure is after the additional labor cost. This is based on the same methodology used in the KPI Levers tab of your ORS workbook.
Section 8
Your 50 Questions Explained
What each of the 50 pre-built questions tells you — and when to use it.
The 50 pre-built questions are organized into five categories. No account or API key is required — every answer is computed instantly from your own data.
Profitability
Profitability
What's my biggest problem?
Prioritized list of issues by dollar impact — losing salons, margin gaps, and traffic deficits.
Profitability
Which salons are losing money?
Deep-dive on any unprofitable location: revenue, loss amount, customers, payroll, rent, and what it would take to turn it around.
Profitability
Am I in the top 25%?
Full table comparing your org across 5 key metrics vs the system average and top 25%, with dollar impact of closing each gap.
Profitability
What's my profit upside?
Dollar value of fixing each specific problem: getting losing salons to break-even, reaching org avg margin, reaching top 25%.
Profitability
Break-even per salon
The minimum revenue each salon needs to cover all costs. Shows how much cushion — or shortfall — each location has.
Profitability
Profit contribution by salon
Each salon's share of your total organization profit, shown as a visual bar chart. Quickly see which salons are carrying the portfolio.
Profitability
Profit per stylist hour
Annual operating profit divided by total annual stylist floor hours. Productivity-adjusted profitability — shows how much profit each paid stylist hour produces.
Profitability
Best vs worst salon margin
The percentage-point gap between your highest and lowest salon margin, plus the dollar lift if the worst location matched the best on its current revenue.
Profitability
How concentrated is my profit?
What % of your total org profit comes from the top 1, 2, and 3 salons. High concentration is a portfolio risk — a bad year at one salon can sink the org.
Profitability
What if I raised price $1?
Models the revenue and net profit lift if you raised your average ticket by $1 across all visits. Most of a $1 increase flows to profit since fixed costs don't move.
Customers & Traffic
Customers & Traffic
What is low traffic costing me?
Translates your customer count gap to the system average into an annual dollar figure per salon and for your whole organization.
Customers & Traffic
Which salon is growing fastest?
Customer count growth ranked salon by salon. Identifies your momentum — and which salons you should study and replicate.
Customers & Traffic
Which salons are losing customers?
Flags salons with negative traffic trends and estimates the annual revenue impact of the decline.
Customers & Traffic
How does my pricing compare?
Average price per visit at each salon vs the system average, along with each salon's discount rate.
Customers & Traffic
Am I discounting too much?
Discount percentage at each salon, ranked highest to lowest. Heavy discounting reduces your effective price per visit.
Customers & Traffic
What would 20 more customers add?
Quick calculation of the annual revenue and profit impact if every salon added 20 customers per week. Uses your real averages.
Customers & Traffic
What's discounting costing me?
Total discount dollars across the org and per salon. Each dollar discounted is a dollar that didn't reach profit.
Customers & Traffic
Who discounts the most?
Salons ranked by discount rate, highest to lowest. Mature locations should stay under 15% — anything higher signals stylist-controlled discounts or aggressive coupons.
Customers & Traffic
Growing vs declining salons
Buckets your salons into growing, flat, and declining based on customer count change. A quick read on portfolio momentum.
Customers & Traffic
Highest vs lowest traffic salon
The customer-count gap between your busiest and slowest salon, with the annual revenue worth of closing it. Wide gaps usually point to local marketing or staffing issues.
My Stylists
My Stylists
Are my stylist costs in line?
Payroll as a percentage of revenue at each salon vs your org average and the system average. Flags any locations running high.
My Stylists
How efficient are my stylists?
Cuts per hour at each salon vs the system average and top 25%. More cuts per hour means more revenue with the same labor.
My Stylists
How fast are haircuts at each salon?
Average minutes per haircut, salon by salon. Shows how many additional customers per hour each salon could serve at system average speed.
My Stylists
How many hours are my salons running?
Weekly floor hours compared to system average and top 25%. Low floor hours often indicates scheduling gaps or insufficient staffing during peak times.
My Stylists
What are my stylists earning?
Average effective hourly wage at each salon — total pay divided by total hours worked. Useful for comparing compensation across locations.
My Stylists
Which salon has the highest payroll %?
All salons ranked by payroll as a share of revenue. Highlights where staffing costs are eating into margins most.
My Stylists
Stylist wages vs the system
Each salon's effective stylist wage vs the system average. High wages aren't bad if cuts/hour and ticket size justify them — flags mismatches between pay and productivity.
My Stylists
Are wages outrunning tickets?
Snapshot proxy: how much of your average ticket the wage at target CPH consumes. Watch this trend across multiple ORS reports — climbing wage share signals margin compression.
My Stylists
Cuts-per-hour spread across salons
The cuts-per-hour range across your portfolio: fastest team vs slowest. The gap usually maps to scheduling discipline and cut-technique consistency.
My Stylists
How much stylist idle time?
Estimated stylist time on the floor not actively cutting, per salon. Calculated from floor hours, customer count, and minutes per cut. Over 25–30% idle is a scheduling signal.
Salon by Salon
Salon by Salon
Best vs worst salon
Side-by-side comparison of your top and bottom performers on every key metric. Understanding the gap is the first step to closing it.
Salon by Salon
Which salon has the most room to improve?
Ranks salons by the gap between their current margin and your org average, with the dollar value of closing each gap.
Salon by Salon
Is my rent a problem?
Rent as a percentage of revenue at each salon. Under 10% is healthy. Over 15% is a structural problem that is hard to fix without renegotiating the lease.
Salon by Salon
Which salon is my highest risk?
A composite risk score combining profitability, customer trend, and rent burden. Identifies which salon needs attention most urgently.
Salon by Salon
Profit ranking — best to worst
All salons ranked by total dollar profit, with each salon's share of your organization's total profit and margin percentage.
Salon by Salon
What's my revenue per stylist hour?
Annual revenue divided by total annual stylist floor hours. Higher means each hour of labor generates more revenue.
Salon by Salon
Composite ranking
A single rank from 1 to N combining margin, cuts/hour, payroll %, and traffic — each indexed to system avg. Tells you who your best and worst overall operators are.
Salon by Salon
Highest overhead %?
Operating expenses as % of revenue, salon by salon. Flags locations with disproportionately high overhead loads (rent, utilities, supplies, all other).
Salon by Salon
Retail $ per visit by salon
Retail product sales per customer visit, ranked. Salons at the top have stylists who recommend products by name and demonstrate them mid-cut — bottom is a training opportunity.
Salon by Salon
Closest gap to the leader
Your top profit salon vs the runner-up. The narrower this gap, the more replicable your leader's playbook is — second place is already close to the model.
Deep Dive
Deep Dive
What are my Great Clips fees costing me?
Breaks down the 6% ongoing royalty and 5% advertising fund by salon and in total. These 11 cents of every dollar cannot be reduced — only grown away from.
Deep Dive
How does my overhead compare?
Total operating expenses as a percentage of revenue, ranked by overhead load. Flags salons with disproportionately high fixed costs.
Deep Dive
How are my product sales?
Retail product revenue and gross margin by salon. Product sales carry high margins with no added labor — an often-overlooked revenue opportunity.
Deep Dive
What would a new salon need to generate?
Uses Great Clips system averages to estimate what a hypothetical new location would need in revenue to be profitable. Helpful for expansion planning.
Deep Dive
What is my full cost structure?
Every cost category as a percentage of revenue at each salon — stylist pay, franchise fees, products, rent, and overhead — shown as visual bars.
Deep Dive
Full organization summary
A single comprehensive summary of your performance: revenue, profit, system ranking, best/worst salon, key metrics, and corporate focus areas in one view.
Deep Dive
Retail attach rate by salon
Product sales as % of total revenue per salon. Salons at less than 75% of your org avg attach rate are flagged as under-sellers — usually a training gap.
Deep Dive
Franchise fee load
Royalty (6%) plus ad fund (5%) dollars contributed by each salon, ranked. Highlights which locations carry the largest fee burden and what share of your total fees they represent.
Deep Dive
Am I ready to expand?
A financial-readiness check before opening a new salon: looks at losing locations, your margin vs system, and average per-salon profit vs the typical new-salon hurdle.
Deep Dive
Are my open hours right-sized?
Compares each salon's open hours to its customer traffic, both indexed to system. Flags over-staffing for traffic and under-staffing where demand is being turned away.
Section 9
Enabling AI Chat
Ask any question in plain English and get an answer using your actual data.
The 50 pre-built questions cover the most common analyses. The AI chat lets you ask anything — "Why is my best salon so much more profitable than my worst?" or "What would happen to my margins if I raised prices $2?" — and get a specific, data-grounded answer.
To use AI chat, you need an API key from one of four providers. You enter it directly in the tool — it is used only in your browser and is never stored.
Gemini (Google)
FREE
Get your key at aistudio.google.com. Sign in with your Google account. No credit card required.
Claude (Anthropic)
Pay-as-you-go
Get your key at console.anthropic.com. Typically under $1/month for normal use.
ChatGPT (OpenAI)
Pay-as-you-go
Get your key at platform.openai.com. Similar pricing to Claude. Requires a credit card on file.
How to get your free Gemini key (recommended)
Step 1
Go to Google AI Studio
Open aistudio.google.com in your browser and sign in with your Google account.
Step 2
Click "Get API key"
Find this option in the left sidebar menu and click it.
Step 3
Create your key
Click Create API key, then Create API key in new project. Your key appears on the screen immediately.
Step 4
Copy and paste it in the tool
Click the copy icon next to your key (it starts with AIzaSy). Scroll to the "Open-ended AI chat" section at the bottom of the dashboard, confirm Gemini (Google) is selected, paste your key, and click Enable AI chat. Do not share this key with anyone.
Your key stays in your browser
When you close the tab, the key is gone. You will need to paste it again next time, or just use the 50 pre-built questions which require no key at all.
Section 10
Resources Section
Every link from your ORS workbook, organized and one click away.
At the bottom of the dashboard is a collapsible Resources section. Click to expand it and you will find every link that Great Clips corporate embedded in your ORS workbook, organized into five categories:
Customer Traffic & Growth
Customer count goal planning guide and marketing plan resources.
Scheduling & Operations
Advanced scheduler guide, expanding operating hours, peak coverage, and effective scheduling resources.
Stylist Performance
Haircut time tracking tool and foundational haircut certification resources.
Financial Tools
Managing profitability, break-even model, new salon budget, cash flow model, salon valuation, and future investment schedule — all downloadable from Great Clips corporate.
Education & Contacts
GCU courses, Finance & Accounting homepage, and direct email links to corporate finance and operations teams.
inSite login required
All links go to the Great Clips inSite portal (your franchisee portal). You will need your inSite credentials to access them. If you do not have those credentials, contact your Great Clips operations representative.
Section 11
Frequently Asked Questions
Is my financial data sent anywhere when I upload the file? +
No. The ORS Report Card runs entirely in your web browser. When you upload your Excel file, it is read locally on your device using a JavaScript library called SheetJS. No data is transmitted to any server, stored anywhere, or shared with anyone. When you close the browser tab, everything is gone.
What file do I need to upload? +
You need the annual ORS Profitability Financial Review workbook that Great Clips corporate sends you — typically in the first quarter of the year. It arrives as an Excel attachment (.xlsx) in an email from the corporate finance team. If you cannot find it, email [email protected] to request a new copy.
Why does it say "No salon columns found" when I upload? +
This usually means the file is not a standard ORS workbook, or the workbook format changed significantly from the version this tool was built for. Make sure you are uploading the Excel file Great Clips corporate sent you, not a modified version. If you still get the error, the workbook format may have been updated — contact the tool administrator for an updated version.
Do I need an internet connection to use this? +
You need an internet connection when first opening the tool (to load the JavaScript libraries from the web). Once the page loads, the file upload and all 50 questions work offline. The AI chat requires an internet connection since it calls an external API.
The tool opened but everything is blank. What happened? +
This usually happens when the JavaScript libraries fail to load, often due to a slow internet connection or a content blocker. Try refreshing the page, disabling any ad blockers, or opening the file in a different browser. Chrome generally works best.
How are the grades assigned? Can I change the thresholds? +
Grades are based on profit margin: A = 35%+, B = 25–35%, C = 12–25%, D = 0–12%, F = below 0%. The thresholds are fixed and calibrated to the Great Clips system benchmarks (system average around 19.6%, top 25% around 29.4%). They cannot be changed without modifying the source file.
I do not have a Google account. Can I still use AI chat? +
Yes. You can use any of the four AI providers: Gemini (Google), Claude (Anthropic), ChatGPT (OpenAI), or Grok (xAI). Gemini is recommended because it is free, but the other three work equally well with their respective API keys. All 50 pre-built questions work without any API key at all.
The ORS data is from 2025. Will this work for future years? +
Yes, as long as Great Clips does not significantly change the structure of the ORS workbook. The tool identifies data by row labels rather than fixed row numbers, so it should work across years. The benchmark values in the comparison charts are from 2025 and would need to be updated if Great Clips changes the system averages significantly.
Can I print this report? +
You can use your browser's print function (Ctrl+P or Cmd+P) to print the dashboard. For a cleaner result, use "Print to PDF" which most browsers support. The dashboard is designed for screen viewing — some elements like the comparison bars may not render perfectly in print.
How do I share this with my management team? +
Send them the link to /tools/ors/analyzer. Each person will need to upload their own ORS workbook. Do not share your own ORS file with people who should not have access to your financials.