Finishing and withdrawing

Somebody stops. Withdraw on their activity does the whole job: it sets the finish date, takes the lessons after it off the diary, credits what they have been charged for lessons they will not get, and tells the people who need to know.

For a hire the same button is called Terminate Hire.

It is the finish date that matters

A withdrawal is a date, not a deletion. The pupil stays on the record, Active, with a finish date — which is why you can still see who was taught what, and why Restore can put them back simply by removing it.

The date has to fall inside the academic year of the activity: from its start date, or the year's start if that is later, up to the last day of the year. End Of Term is offered as one click where the year has terms.

Remove Completely is a different thing

Remove Completely, at the top of the dialog, is for an enrolment made in error: the record is cancelled from its start date, as though it had never been taken up, and all the lessons go rather than the ones after a date.

Use the finish date for somebody who really was taught and has now stopped — it is what makes the invoicing right, because they are charged for the time they were there.

What it does to the money

The activity's latest invoice line is credited — everything still on it, unless you lower the figure in the dialog — with the narrative Withdrawal re and the invoice number, and the payment schedule is recalculated once.

Where the only invoice behind the activity is worth nothing at all, it is deleted instead of credited, as long as Allow Transaction Deletion is on.

A credit is not a refund. If the payer has already paid and is now in credit, see Refunds — and note that a credit alone does not give anybody their money back.

Why Xperios will not let you

Three refusals come up again and again:

"A lesson on or after the finish date already has a register mark or has been claimed for." Taking the lesson off the diary would destroy a mark, a task result, a pay claim or a credit that has already been processed. Choose a later date — that is the whole fix. The lessons before the date are never touched.

"The finish date must be between … and …" You are trying to finish them outside the activity's own academic year. If you want them to stop at the end of the year, use the year's last day; if the year has already closed, work on next year's record instead.

"Set up at least one Leave Reason before withdrawing anyone." Tuition and memberships record why somebody left, so the list cannot be empty. Leave Reasons live in Settings, under the Calendar section.

Progressed pupils have to be ended twice

If a pupil has already been progressed into the new year, ending them in last year does not end them in this one. Both records exist, and both need a finish date.

That is deliberate — pupils leave and restart, and last year's history should not change because this year did. But it is the most common reason somebody "withdrawn" is still on a register.

Leave Reasons and Leave Requests are not the same list

Both are in Settings, under Calendar, and they are easy to mix up:

Leave Reasons	What you pick when you withdraw somebody. Used internally
Leave Requests	What a parent picks when asking to leave, on the Portal

If the Portal offers a parent nothing to choose from, it is because no Leave Requests have been set up — adding Leave Reasons will not fill that list.

Parents can only ask

A parent never withdraws anybody. They request a withdrawal, with a reason and a leave date — which cannot be in the past — and the request arrives in Tasks → Authorise Withdrawal Requests for somebody to decide. The point is to have the request recorded rather than sitting in an inbox.

The request shows the reason with the name of whoever raised it in brackets. Reject Withdrawal turns it down and leaves the activity running.

If you would rather parents could not ask at all, turn off Allow Request Withdrawal on the service type. It is per service type, so you can let them ask about lessons but not about ensembles.

Putting somebody back

Restore on the activity. It removes the finish date and the pupil carries on — but it deliberately leaves the leave reason in place, so you can still see that they had asked to stop.

Restore is offered on an activity that is cancelled, or active with a finish date. It is not offered where the record was transferred on (work on the one it became) or where a linked hire's tuition is no longer live.

Two things restoring does not do:

• it does not re-charge anybody. Nothing is re-invoiced, and the credit raised on the withdrawal still stands — so if the lessons are being taught again, post a debit adjustment for them;
• it does not put the pupil back into the new year. Restoring last year's lessons restores last year. See Progression.

Leaving a way back

A direct tuition can leave a waiting list item behind as it is withdrawn — Create Waiting List Item, which asks for a proposed re-start date. It is the right choice for a pupil taking a break rather than leaving: they are off the register and off the invoice, but they are still on your list.

That re-start date is what shows in the waiting list's Applied column, which is why some entries appear to have applied in the future. See The waiting list.

A whole group at once

On a group, End Memberships finishes every membership in the year rather than one. It is worth knowing exactly what it touches:

• Active memberships with no finish date are ended, and their later lessons come off the diary. The confirmation says how many.
• Waiting and offered members are left — they are applications, not memberships.
• An agreed leaving date is never overwritten. Somebody already finishing on a date you chose keeps that date.
• Members progressed into a later year are named and left alone, because next year's record depends on them.

For individual lessons there is no equivalent bulk finish for anybody who is directly billed: each one needs its own credit, so they are done one at a time.

What gets sent

Where the service type sends them, two emails follow a withdrawal: one to the payer, and — for direct tuition — one to the teachers of the lessons that have gone. Both are optional, and they are switched on and off in the service type's Email section along with the transfer emails.

Instruments

Terminating a hire can return the instruments on the finish date, if you tick to say they came back — never earlier than the day they were given out. If they have not actually been returned, do not tick it: the hire finishes and the instrument stays showing as out, which is what you want when you are still chasing it.

A tuition linked to a hire, or a hire linked to a tuition, is unlinked as part of the withdrawal.

See also

• The waiting list — where a pupil taking a break goes
• Progression — why last year's withdrawal did not reach this year
• Refunds — getting money back out after the credit
• Tasks — the withdrawal requests queue