What the rule asks of either
The record requirements are the same whichever way you keep them. For every whirlpool spa: a record on the department-approved form of the date and time of each cleaning, showing whether it was a daily or bi-weekly cleaning, made at or near the time of the cleaning, and showing any working day the spa sat unused. Kept at least sixty days. Shown on request to a client or a TDLR representative. A spa with no record comes out of service until it is cleaned and the record is caught up.
Three phrases carry the whole comparison: at or near the time, each cleaning, and on request. Paper and an app answer them differently.
Paper, honestly
What works. The form is free. Every technician already knows how to write a name and a time. Inspectors have seen it a thousand times and can read it at a glance. A clipboard at the chair needs no battery, no password and no vendor.
Where it fails. The row is supposed to be written when the cleaning happens, and on a busy Saturday it is written at close, by whoever is still there, from memory. The end-of-day entry, a separate row that has to say End of Day and nothing else, is the one that gets lost between the last client and locking up. A page holds eighteen rows, so a busy chair fills one every three or four days and sixty days is a stack of seventeen pages per chair; ask for one chair over one date range and someone is sorting paper while the inspector waits. Water and acetone do to a clipboard what you would expect. And the two-box combinations that fail an inspection (End of Day beside After Each Client, Not Used beside Portable Jet) are one distracted tick away, because paper does not know they are wrong.
A spreadsheet or a phone note
Common, and worse than either. It is not the approved form, so it still has to be copied onto BAC-FI-004-E by hand. It is typed after the fact, so “at or near the time” depends on someone’s memory of when they typed it. It lives on one phone. Use it as a scratchpad if you must; it is not the record.
An app, honestly
What it fixes. The technician logs the cleaning at the chair while the water drains: name, chair, tap. The row carries a timestamp nobody wrote by hand, which is what “at or near the time” looks like when it is not a matter of trust. The invalid box combinations are unreachable, because the app derives the boxes from what kind of cleaning you picked rather than letting you tick them. Sixty days for any chair, any date range, come out as the official form, printed, in the time it takes the inspector to sit down.
What it costs. A subscription, a tablet or a phone at the station, a minute of setup per technician name, and a vendor you are trusting with a record you are legally required to keep. That last one deserves a plain answer: your entries are yours to print at any time, every plan keeps at least the sixty days the rule requires, and the higher tiers keep a year or more so an old dispute can still be answered.
Side by side
| What differs | On paper | In an app |
|---|---|---|
| Who writes the row | Whoever is still there at close | The technician who did the cleaning |
| When it gets written | At night, from memory | At the chair, while the water drains |
| What proves the time | The handwriting | A timestamp on every row |
| The end-of-day row | Remembered, or not | Its own entry type, one tap |
| Box combinations that fail | One distracted tick away | Unreachable; the boxes are derived |
| Sixty days for one chair | A stack of pages, sorted by hand | Any chair, any date range, printed |
| What the inspector holds | The form, handwritten | The same form, printed from the log |
| Cost | Paper and your evenings | From $29 a month |
| What can go wrong | A lost, torn or half-filled page | A lapsed subscription, a dead tablet |
Which one for your salon
Paper can work for a salon with one to three chairs and an owner who is at the desk at close every day and treats the End of Day row as part of locking up. The failure mode is not the form; it is a busy owner and a rotating crew.
Past that, the arithmetic turns. Five chairs at five rows a day is twenty-five rows a day, eighty-five pages across sixty days, and an End of Day row on five different clipboards at the moment everyone wants to go home. That is the point at which an app stops being a convenience and starts being the thing that makes the record complete. Either way the rule is the same: one record per spa, made at the time, sixty days, on request.
| Plan and chairs | Price | Log history kept |
|---|---|---|
| Boutique, 1–7 chairs | $29 a month, or $239 a year | 90 days |
| Standard, 8–16 chairs | $59 a month, or $479 a year | 1 year |
| Mega Lounge, 17–24 chairs | $99 a month, or $799 a year | 1 year |
| Enterprise / Large Salon, 25+ chairs | $149 a month, or $1,199 a year | Never auto-deleted |
Every plan stamps the official BAC-FI-004-E, runs on one shared shop screen for unlimited technicians, and includes inspection mode. There is a fourteen-day free trial and monthly plans have no contract.
If you stay on paper
Do it well. Print the form from our copy, one clipboard per chair with a pen tied to it, a kitchen timer at the sink for the ten-minute flush, and the End of Day row written into the closing checklist next to the till. Keep the filled pages by chair, newest on top, for at least sixty days. The box combinations and the cleaning steps themselves are in their own guides.
Frequently asked questions
Does TDLR accept a record kept in an app?
The rule asks for a record on the department-approved form, made at or near the time of cleaning, kept at least sixty days and shown on request. ReadyPedi prints that form, BAC-FI-004-E, from what the technicians logged, so what an inspector is handed is the official form on paper, filled in from timestamped entries.
Is paper actually non-compliant?
No. A paper log that is complete, made at the time, and kept sixty days meets the rule. What paper does not do is make the row when the cleaning happens, remind anyone about the end-of-day entry, or refuse a box combination that fails inspection. Those are the gaps an inspector finds.
Can every technician use one app login?
Yes. ReadyPedi runs on one shared screen per shop, like a tablet at the station: a technician picks their name, the chair, and taps Log. There are no individual logins to hand out or revoke.
What if I switch mid-month?
Start the app on any day and keep the paper pages in the drawer for their sixty days. The two overlap; an inspector asking for the last sixty days gets paper for the earlier weeks and the printed form for the rest.
Does an app cost more than paper?
In money, yes: from $29 a month for a salon with up to seven chairs. Paper costs a ream and whatever the evening at the desk costs you. The comparison worth making is against one missed end-of-day row on inspection day.
This comparison is written by ReadyPedi, which makes the app it describes. The rule requirements are restated from 16 TAC §83.108 in plain language and are not legal advice; TDLR’s rules are the authority.