Cancelling a Lesson
Cancelling a lesson means marking it as not having taken place, while keeping it in your schedule history. You do this by recording an attendance status — such as "teacher cancelled" or "absent" — rather than deleting th
Cancelling vs Deleting
These are two different things in Octavia, and it's worth understanding the distinction:
- Cancelling means the lesson slot stays in your records, but the outcome is recorded as a cancellation. The lesson is visible in history and any billing or entitlement logic tied to that attendance status is applied.
- Deleting means the lesson record is removed entirely. See Deleting a Lesson for when this is appropriate and what constraints apply.
Most of the time, cancelling is the right choice. Deleting is usually reserved for lessons that were created by mistake.
How to Cancel a Lesson
Open the lesson and mark attendance using the appropriate cancellation status. You can do this from the Lessons list or from the lesson details panel opened from the calendar or student/group lesson history.
Common cancellation statuses include:
- Teacher cancelled — the lesson was cancelled by you. This is typically non-billable: under calendar-based billing the lesson was already included in the invoice for that period, but the status signals that you won't be billing for it or that the family is owed a makeup. Under lesson pack billing, a non-billable status means no credit is consumed.
- Absent without notice — the student didn't attend and gave no warning. Whether this is billable or not depends on your attendance settings.
- Absent with notice — the student gave sufficient notice before cancelling. Whether this is billable or not is also governed by your attendance settings.
The exact statuses available to you, and their billing and makeup-credit implications, are configured in Attendance Settings. See Reviewing Your Attendance Settings and Attendance Statuses and What They Mean for full detail.
For an individual lesson, you'll usually see one attendance control. For a group lesson, attendance is recorded per participant, so you can apply different outcomes to different members of the same lesson.
Billing Implications of Cancellation
How a cancellation affects billing depends on your billing model and attendance settings:
Calendar-based billing — the lesson is already in the billing period. Marking it as cancelled doesn't remove it from a sent invoice. If the lesson was scheduled and the invoice was generated before you cancelled, the family has already been billed. In practice, fairness is handled through the makeup credit system over time, depending on your attendance settings.
Lesson pack billing — billing is attendance-driven. A non-billable cancellation status means no lesson-pack credit is consumed. The credit stays available for a future attended lesson.
PAYG billing — only attended (billable) lessons generate charges. A cancellation status is non-billable, so no charge is triggered.
Makeup Credits
If your attendance settings are configured so that a given cancellation status creates a makeup credit, the system automatically generates a makeup credit when you apply that status. This credit can then be used to schedule a replacement lesson. See Makeup Lessons: Scheduling a Replacement.
Whether a specific cancellation status creates a makeup credit is part of your attendance configuration and reflects your studio's policy.
You can also add a comment to the attendance record, or clear attendance later if you need to undo or change the cancellation. If an attendance change conflicts with billing that has already been sent, the app shows an error and prevents the change.
The Lesson Stays in Your History
A cancelled lesson remains in the lessons list and calendar. It will show the attendance status you applied. This is a deliberate part of the record — it shows what was scheduled, what happened, and any outcomes (makeup credit, etc.).
If you want the lesson to disappear from your schedule entirely rather than appearing as a cancelled session, you'll need to delete it — but see Deleting a Lesson for the constraints that apply.
Previous: Rescheduling a Lesson · Next: Deleting a Lesson