Cancel or refund
You cancel session bookings in the session's participant list. With each cancellation you decide whether money goes back to the client, where it goes and whether a cancellation fee is kept. There are two dialogs: Cancel client for one participant, and Cancel appointment for the whole session with everyone on it. A single appointment booked with a resource or treatment is cancelled differently — see Cancel a single appointment.
Before you start
- You need Configuration & settings at Manage in your user rights. Without it the session dialog opens read-only. Cancelling a session that has no participants also needs Organisation: Manage or Manage on the calendar's resource.
- The session must be active and must not have started yet. Once its start time has passed, the dashboard no longer offers cancellation; you can only mark no-shows (see Session participants).
- Refund destinations and the fee need the Payments module.
Cancel one participant
- Open the session in the Scheduler with a double-click.
- In the participant list, tick exactly one participant and click Cancel selected. The Cancel client dialog opens.
- Check the amounts. For a client who paid, the dialog shows Paid amount and Refund amount; otherwise it says "No payment recorded — nothing to refund."
- Choose the Refund destination. The dialog opens on No refund, so nothing is refunded unless you pick a destination (see the table below).
- Check the Cancellation fee %. The field appears once you pick a destination, pre-filled from the session's Cancellation fee (%) setting; the refund amount follows what you type. 100 keeps the whole amount.
- Optionally enter a Reason. It is printed in the client's cancellation email, so write it for the client.
- Click the tick (Confirm cancellation).
The participant leaves the list and the place becomes free; if the session has a waitlist, the place is offered to the next client (see Waitlist after a cancellation). A place booked to pay at the desk and not paid yet has nothing to refund: cancelling it also voids its open order.
Refund destinations
| Option | What happens | Where you see it afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| No refund | The booking is cancelled and the money stays with you. | — |
| Refund to wallet | The refund amount is credited to the client's wallet; they can spend it on their next online booking. Your Wallet credit expiry (days) applies. | A Refund entry in Wallets and a credit note in Orders. |
| Refund to card | The money goes back through the payment provider to the client's online payment. Works only when the booking was paid online in full, with no wallet credit used — never for desk payments. | Refunded in Payments and a credit note in Orders. |
| Refund as voucher | A voucher for the refund amount is created for the client, valid for your Voucher validity (days). | Vouchers and a credit note in Orders. |
Every refund creates a credit note: an order whose reference is CR- followed by the original order reference. Only a refund to card changes the payment in Payments; after a wallet or voucher refund the payment still shows Captured. An order paid with a voucher that itself came from a refund cannot be refunded again.
Besides No refund, the dialog offers only the destinations your organisation's Allowed refund destinations permits (Configurations > Organisation, Payments; empty allows all three — see Organisation). For a client who has not paid it offers only No refund.
If the refund does not go through
go flow cancels the booking first and then makes the refund. If the refund fails, the booking is already cancelled and the cancellation email is on its way; the dialog stays open with the message "The refund did not go through — the booking is cancelled but no money was returned …". Then:
- Pick another destination and confirm again, or choose No refund. A common reason is Refund to card for a booking that was not paid online in full.
- Finish in this dialog: once you close it, the cancelled participant is no longer listed and the dialog cannot be opened for them again.
- A card refund that the payment provider could not confirm at once is completed automatically later. Before you compensate the client in another way, check Payments for Refunded.
- If every attempt fails, close the dialog and credit the amount with Adjust wallet on the Wallets page.
Cancel the whole session
Two controls open the Cancel appointment dialog:
- Cancel Session — the cancel icon in the title bar of the session dialog.
- Ticking two or more participants and clicking Cancel selected.
Either way, confirming cancels the session itself and every participant on it — active, held or reserved, and waitlisted — not only the ones you ticked. The warning at the top shows how many clients are affected. A session without participants is cancelled at once by Cancel Session, without a dialog.
- Read the warning and the Attached clients table: each client with Paid (or Unpaid) and the Refund amount.
- When at least one client has paid, the Bulk refund defaults block appears: choose one Refund destination and one Cancellation fee % for everyone who paid. It opens on No refund and offers only the destinations your Allowed refund destinations permits; the fee field appears once you pick a destination, pre-filled from the session's Cancellation fee (%). The Refund amount column follows your choice. Clients who have not paid get no refund.
- Optionally enter a Reason; it goes into every client's cancellation email.
- Click the tick (Confirm cancellation). The dialog and the session dialog close, and the session is cancelled.
Different refunds for different clients. The block applies one destination and one fee to everyone who paid. To refund a client differently — for example Refund to card for one who paid online, while the others get wallet credit — cancel that client on their own first (tick one, Cancel selected), then cancel the session.
Messages after confirming. "… clients could not be cancelled" or "… refund(s) could not be dispatched" mean that part of the work did not complete. The messages suggest a retry from the participant list, but the list of a cancelled session no longer offers it. Note the number, check the clients concerned in Wallets and Orders, and settle a missing refund with Adjust wallet.
Cancellation fee and cancellation window
These settings belong to the session, under Configurations > Resources (see Resource details). They are read at the moment of each cancellation, so a change also applies to bookings made before it.
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Cancellation fee (%) | The share of the paid amount kept when a cancelled booking is refunded; 10 by default. It pre-fills Cancellation fee % in both dialogs, where you can change it for that cancellation, and applies on its own when clients cancel themselves. Payments module. |
| Allow cancellation | Whether clients may cancel their own bookings on the booking site. Off by default for sessions; clients then have to ask you. |
| Cancel timeout (hours) | Shown while Allow cancellation is on: how many hours before the start online cancellation closes; 24 by default, 0 = until the start. |
When a client cancels in their booking-site profile, the confirmation tells them the deadline ("Cancellation allowed up to 24 hours before start.") and the share credited to their balance. This is the only place customers see these conditions: the booking site and the checkout show neither the deadline nor the fee, and the Confirmation email only links to the client's profile, offering to cancel there when the session allows it. In the profile, a booking shows its cancel button only while online cancellation is open. State your conditions where customers read them before booking, for example in the session's Texts. Their own cancellation always refunds to their wallet (see Wallets), minus the fee, without your involvement. If you restrict Allowed refund destinations, keep the wallet allowed, or these refunds fail.
The window binds only clients: in the dashboard you can cancel until the session starts. go flow has no separate rebooking deadline; the cancellation window is the only one.
What the client receives
| Message | When | Controlled by |
|---|---|---|
| Cancellation email | Each cancelled client, from either dialog — waitlisted clients included — and each client who cancels in their booking-site profile, unless the session has already ended. Contains your Reason when you entered one. | The session's Cancellation email switch (on by default) and a Cancellation template (see Message templates). |
| Refund confirmation email | Each refund that goes through, whatever the destination. Names the amount and where it went; the credit note is attached. | Sent whenever a refund confirmation template exists; no switch. |
Reminder emails and SMS still pending for a cancelled booking are deleted. A cancellation in either dialog does not notify a group's organiser or the resource person; those notices go out only when a client cancels themselves, and the resource person's notice also when you cancel a single appointment through its Status. You can read every message sent on the Emails page.
Waitlist after a cancellation
When a cancellation frees places in a session with Waitlist enabled, go flow offers them automatically, in the order clients joined the waitlist, to each client whose number of places fits. The client receives the "Waitlist — spot available" email (when that switch is on) and has the booking template's Waitlist promotion timeout (min) — 15 by default, see Edit a booking template — to confirm the place in their profile and pay; after that it passes to the next client. You do not need to do anything. Promotion stops shortly before the start, and cancelling the whole session cancels the waitlisted clients too.
Move a client to another session
go flow has no "move to another session" action and no rebooking deadline of its own. Staff move a client in three steps:
- Open the new session, check that a place is free, click Add participant, choose the client and the number of Slots, and click Add. The client is booked at once, unpaid, and receives a confirmation email when the session's Confirmation switch is on.
- Open the old session, tick the client, click Cancel selected and choose the refund:
- To carry the payment over: No refund here; then, on the new session, click Take payment on the client's row and choose Waive, so the new place is not charged again.
- To return the money: a refund destination as above, and collect the new place with Take payment if it costs something.
- Enter a Reason such as "Moved to Thursday 18:00 at your request": the client receives the cancellation email for the old place, and the reason tells them why.
Clients can do the same themselves while Allow cancellation is on and the window is open: they cancel (the credit goes to their wallet) and book the new session online with that credit.
Cancel a single appointment
An appointment booked with a resource or treatment, not in a session, has no participant list, so neither dialog is available and no refund is offered. Open the appointment in the Scheduler, set Status and save:
- Cancelled by employee — the client receives the cancellation email (when the resource's Cancellation switch is on); no money is returned.
- Cancelled by client — handled as the client's own cancellation: if they paid online, the paid amount minus the resource's Cancellation fee (%) goes to their wallet automatically.
If money should go back in another way, add it with Adjust wallet on the Wallets page.