Use cancellation policies to choose whether learners can move or cancel their own places on scheduled courses, how much notice they must give and what happens to eligible card payments. This guide is for course providers setting those rules in the Admin Dashboard.
A policy is a reusable set of rules. Create it once, then use it as your account default or select it for individual courses. These settings are available on every plan. You need System Admin access to manage policies and the transfer setting.
Choose the right kind of change
Change | What happens | What controls it |
Reschedule | The same person moves to another eligible date of the same course. An order-linked place must cost the same on the destination date. | Allow Rescheduling and the deadline in the course’s cancellation policy. |
Cancel | The selected place is released. The order and any eligible payment are adjusted according to the cancellation rules. | Allow Cancelling, the refund option and the deadline in the course’s cancellation policy. |
Transfer to another person | The person who booked gives their own place to somebody else. The order stays with the person who booked. | The account-wide Allow Transferring a Place to Someone Else switch. It works independently of cancellation policies. |
Policies apply to courses on set dates, blended courses and bookings for a whole block of sessions. They do not offer online cancellation or rescheduling for on-demand courses, on-request courses or a single session booked separately within a block. For a whole block, the first session determines the change deadline.
These policies control changes made by learners and bookers. Staff actions in the Admin Dashboard use their own procedures, without applying the learner policy’s deadline or cancellation fee. For those actions, follow Move a Participant or Replace the Person Attending or Cancel an Order or Refund a Payment.
Create a policy
Start in your business account at admin.cademy.io. Check that you have opened the correct business account before changing its settings.
Open Settings, then select Cancellation Policies. The page lists your saved policies, their rules and the number of courses using each one.
Select New Policy. The policy editor opens.
Enter a unique Name, such as Workshops. The name can contain up to 80 characters. Names that differ only in capitalisation count as the same name.
Choose whether to leave Allow Rescheduling on. This lets learners move to an eligible date of the same course before the deadline.
Choose whether to leave Allow Cancelling on. When it is on, choose Refund automatically or No refund. For Refund automatically, enter a whole-number Cancellation Fee from 0% to 99%. The fee is kept from the refundable card amount. A 0% fee returns that eligible amount without a cancellation deduction.
Set Changes Allowed Until to a whole number of days before the course starts. Enter 0 to allow changes until the start time. Each day means 24 hours. For example, 1 closes online changes 24 hours before the start.
If needed, complete Note for Learners (optional), using up to 500 characters. The note appears with the policy. It explains your terms but does not change the rules enforced by the switches, fee and deadline.
Check the Learners will see preview, then select Save Policy. The editor closes and the policy appears in the list. The first policy you create becomes the account default.
A new policy starts with rescheduling and cancelling on, Refund automatically, a 0% fee and a 1-day deadline. Check these values before saving.
Important: Policy changes apply straight away, including to existing bookings. Creating the first default also enables its rules for eligible courses that have no separate policy selected. Check the courses and current bookings affected before saving.
Understand refunds before choosing a rule
Refund automatically returns only eligible money paid by card through Stripe for the cancelled place. It does not automatically refund bank transfers, manually recorded payments, PayPal, gift cards, Klarna or other non-card payments. Any customer-paid booking fee is excluded from the refund. Earlier refunds and the current invoice balance also affect the amount available.
No refund keeps money already paid and releases the place. It does not mean an unpaid cancelled place must still be paid for. On an unpaid or part-paid invoice, the cancelled place’s value first reduces what is owed. Only an eligible paid amount left after that can follow the refund rule. Cancellation through an instalment plan requires the provider’s help.
For example, a Workshops policy could allow both changes until 1 day before the start, with Refund automatically and a 10% fee. If a fully paid place has £125 available for a card refund, the cancellation keeps £12.50 and refunds £112.50. A separate customer booking fee is not included in that £125. The cancellation confirmation shows the actual result before the learner agrees.
Choose the default or a policy for one course
The account default applies when a course has no separate policy selected. To change the default, open Settings → Cancellation Policies, open the three-dot menu beside the policy you want, then select Set as Default. Courses following the default use the selected policy straight away. Courses with a different policy selected keep that selection.
To choose a policy for one course, you need permission to edit that course, such as System Admin or the relevant Course Owner access:
Open Courses in the Admin Dashboard, then open the scheduled or blended course you want to change.
Select Edit Course to open its course editor.
In the course editor, open Settings, then Booking Options.
Find Cancellation Policy. Select Account Default, which shows the default policy’s name, or select a named policy from the list. Read the summary beneath the selection.
Select Save in the course editor’s top bar. The selected policy applies to that course’s existing and future eligible bookings.
If no policies exist, the course settings say No cancellation policies yet. A System Admin can select Create Policy. If policies exist but none is the default, the first choice is No Policy (no online changes). A course with no applicable policy offers no learner cancellation or rescheduling.
For a course that must use direct contact while other courses follow an account default, create and select a named policy with both Allow Rescheduling and Allow Cancelling off. The policy directs learners to contact you about changes.
For the other booking settings on this screen, follow Choose How Customers Book or Apply.
Edit or delete a policy
In Settings → Cancellation Policies, open the three-dot menu beside a policy and select Edit…. Change the rules and select Save Policy. Every course using that policy, including its existing bookings, uses the saved rules.
To delete a policy, open its three-dot menu and select Delete…. Read the course count and consequence in the confirmation window before selecting Delete Policy:
If you delete a policy that is not the default, courses using it fall back to the account default. If there is no default, those courses stop offering online cancellation and rescheduling.
If you delete the default, no other policy becomes the default automatically. Courses relying on it stop offering online cancellation and rescheduling. A course explicitly using another saved policy keeps that policy.
If you delete every policy, no course has a cancellation policy until one is created.
Course counts include scheduled and blended courses using the policy, including unpublished courses. Deleted and archived courses, on-demand courses and on-request courses are excluded. The count is a course count, not a booking count.
Control transfers to another person
Open Settings → Cancellation Policies and find Transfers below the policy list. Change Allow Transferring a Place to Someone Else. This switch saves separately from the policy editor and applies across the account. It is on unless it has been switched off.
The learner action is called Transfer Your Space. A transfer requires an eligible place on an order, before the course starts and before attendance or progress has been recorded. Switching it off prevents bookers giving away their own places. It does not stop a booker replacing another participant on their order. A cancellation policy is not required for transfers. See Manage Participants and View Their Course Progress and Certificates for the learner steps.
Check what learners can see and change
During checkout, a covered course shows a cancellation summary and a Cancellation Policy link. After booking, its course page shows Your Cancellation Policy with View Policy. The policy window shows the policy name, rescheduling and cancellation rules, and your learner note. Deadlines are displayed in the course timezone. If a start has not been selected or confirmed, the wording describes the number of days before the start instead.
A policy is one part of eligibility. Online changes also stop at the deadline or course start, after attendance or lesson progress has been recorded, after completion, or after a certificate or CPD award has been issued. Orders with custom charges require your help for cancellation and rescheduling. Instalment plans and invoices split by course require your help for cancellation. Bookings awaiting approval do not offer these actions.
The booker can change their own place or another participant’s place on their order. A participant booked by somebody else can reschedule their own eligible place, but must ask the booker or provider to cancel it. A learner whose place was added without an order can change their own eligible booking without an order payment or refund. For finding the learner’s course page and managing people on an order, see Manage Participants and View Their Course Progress and Certificates.
Understand change notifications
Cancellation and rescheduling generate provider notices for the selected team notification recipients. A course’s selected recipients take priority; otherwise the account selection is used. If neither has recipients selected, the notices go to System Admins. Selecting a group with no eligible members does not create a recipient. See Choose Team Notifications and Calendar Invitations to check those selections.
A moved participant receives the updated booking details. When you or the booker move a guest’s place, the course must have guest emails enabled for that guest to receive the message. A guest moving their own place receives the moved message even when guest emails are off, and the booker is also notified.
A cancellation confirms the change to the person who made it. If the booker cancels a guest’s place, that guest is notified when guest emails are enabled. When the last place cancels the whole order, the normal order-cancellation email provides the confirmation instead of an extra duplicate message. The provider notice explains the money outcome, including an automatic refund that could not be completed.
These notices require email sending to be enabled for your account and usable recipient email addresses. Missing, blocked or suppressed addresses prevent delivery. Check the saved booking and order as well as any email.
Frequently asked questions
Can I set different rules for dates of the same course?
No. A course uses one selected policy or the account default. There is no separate policy choice for each date. A whole block uses the first session for its deadline.
Can I offer a larger refund with more notice?
Not as automatic tiers within one policy. A policy has one refund option, one percentage fee and one deadline in whole days. Staff can handle an individual exception through the Admin Dashboard using Cancel an Order or Refund a Payment.
Does changing a policy preserve the terms of an earlier booking?
No. The current saved policy applies to existing bookings. Edit, change the default, reassign or delete a policy only after checking its effect on those bookings.