This guide is for System Admins who need to cancel a customer’s booking, or only part of it: one participant, one course or one unused space. It explains what happens to the money, how to cancel without emailing the customer, and what to do if you cancelled something by mistake.
In Cademy, a booking is recorded as an order. A registration gives one participant their place and course access. An invoice states the amount charged, and a credit note records a reduction to that charge. Cancelling and refunding are separate actions: a refund does not cancel the booking, and when you cancel you choose whether to refund, hold the money as credit or keep it.
Check your agreed cancellation terms with the customer before choosing the amount to refund or keep.
Choose Whether to Cancel, Refund or Delete a Booking
What you need | Action | What happens to the record and money |
The whole booking will not go ahead | Cancel Order | The order is kept as cancelled, with its history. For each paid invoice you choose to refund, hold as credit or keep the money. You can switch off the cancellation and credit-note emails. |
One participant, course or space is no longer needed | Remove Participant…, Remove Course… or Remove Space… | The rest of the order stays. You choose the money outcome for the removed part. |
Give money back but keep the booking | Refund… on a payment | The order and registrations keep their status. See Refund a Customer in Full or in Part. |
The order is a test or duplicate | Delete Order | Only orders that have never received money or used customer credit can be deleted. Deletion cannot be undone. |
For deletion steps and restrictions, see Delete Test or Duplicate Orders and Registrations.
Before you confirm: check the customer, order, amount and refund destination. A refund recorded in Cademy is not proof that the customer has received money in their bank account. If an action reports an error, check what has already changed before trying again.
Cancel a Whole Booking (Cancel Order)
Use Cancel Order when none of the booking will go ahead.
In the Admin Dashboard, open Orders and select the order. Select Manage Order > Cancel Order.
In Cancel this order?, wait for What happens to each invoice to load. Review every invoice, not only the first one.
For each paid invoice, choose the refund, credit or keep-money option. Labels include the amount, such as Refund £240 to card, Hold £240 as credit or Keep the money. The refund choice returns that invoice’s remaining paid amount. Check every destination if more than one payment method was used.
Enter an Internal Note (optional) if you need to record why you are cancelling.
Check Cancel participant registrations too. It starts ticked. Leave it ticked to cancel non-completed registrations and remove access through those registrations. Registrations already marked completed are not cancelled.
Check Email the customer and participants. It starts ticked each time you open cancellation. Untick it to cancel without emailing the customer (see the next section).
Read the final button, including any amount, such as Cancel Order & Refund £190. Select it only when the registration, money and email choices are correct.
Check the order’s cancelled status, its registrations and Invoices & Payments. Check the payment provider separately for the refund’s processing status.
If participants need to keep their course place or access: contact Cademy Support before cancelling the order. Do not rely on unticking Cancel participant registrations too to preserve their registrations.
Cancelling the order also releases its discount uses, even if you untick Cancel participant registrations too or keep the money. Discount uses count purchased course spaces. See Create and Apply Discounts for how usage limits work.
What Happens to Invoices and Money When You Cancel an Order
Draft invoices are deleted. Unpaid issued invoices are voided, meaning they are no longer due.
Refund requests the refund through the selected destination. Stripe and PayPal process refunds against the original payment. Gift card refunds restore the original gift card when that destination is available.
For a Recorded manually or Xero destination, Cademy only records the refund. It does not transfer money; you move this money yourself.
Hold as credit does not return money. The credit first accounts for the unpaid balance; the amount shown as held remains available to the billed customer for a future invoice.
Keep the money keeps the paid amount and writes off any unpaid remainder. It does not leave that remainder for later collection.
Cancel an Order Without Emailing the Customer
To cancel quietly, untick Email the customer and participants in Cancel this order? before you confirm. Cademy then sends neither the order-cancellation emails to the customer, participants and admin recipients, nor any credit-note email created by that cancellation. Your refund, credit and registration choices still take effect.
The cancelled order shows Customer notified: No, cancelled without emailing. Check the order’s Emails section for its recorded messages. The choice is not remembered: the box starts ticked again for the next cancellation.
When the box is ticked, the normal cancellation-email rules apply. The Order Contact is the customer the order belongs to. Guest emails depend on the registration-cancellation choice and the course’s guest-email setting. Cademy does not send the order-cancellation email for an Abandoned checkout. Account email sending and recipient addresses also affect delivery.
The email choice does not stop a payment provider’s own refund receipt or waitlist notifications to other people when spaces become available. Check those systems and settings separately.
If Cancelling an Order Shows an Error
An order can already be cancelled while a refund or credit step is incomplete. Check the order, registrations, credit notes, refund entries and provider status before doing anything else. Do not start a separate full refund to make up for an unclear error. If the remaining amount is unclear, contact Cademy Support with the order reference, invoice reference and error message.
Cancel Part of an Order (One Participant, Course or Space)
Use this route when the rest of the order should stay, for example when one of several participants or one of several courses is cancelled. In the Admin Dashboard, open Orders, select the order and choose the relevant row menu:
Participant row > ⋯ > Remove Participant…: remove the participant from the order item. A financial adjustment also reduces the purchased space count. If you choose No Financial Change or The Invoice Stands, the participant is removed but the order keeps the purchased space and existing charge. A discounted space kept on the order still counts towards the discount’s usage. Removing the discounted purchased space releases its use.
Course row > ⋯ > Remove Course…: remove a course when another course or custom item will remain on the order. Use Cancel Order when it is the order’s only remaining item. The credit amount is calculated for you; a fee can reduce it. A financial correction is required.
Unassigned space row > ⋯ > Remove Space…: remove a space that has no participant. You can adjust the credit amount or deduct a fee, but cannot leave the invoice unchanged. If asked to choose an offer, select the offer whose space you are removing.
Read the confirmation’s description of the order and invoice changes. A draft can change directly; an unpaid invoice can be voided and reissued; a paid invoice can need a credit note.
If Amount is editable, enter the amount to credit within the displayed maximum. This is not necessarily the cash refund: an unpaid invoice balance is reduced first.
To keep a cancellation fee where offered, select Deduct a fee…, then complete Fee amount and Fee description. Check the revised refund or credit total.
Choose from the financial options shown. For a refund, check Refund to and every allocated amount. For held credit, check the amount shown as held.
If the removal replaces an issued invoice or issues a credit note, check Email the customer, which starts ticked. Untick it to stop the replacement-invoice or credit-note email for that removal. The invoice adjustment, credit or refund still happens. A No Financial Change outcome has no credit-note email box.
For a replacement invoice with open payment requests, unticking the box also cancels those requests without creating replacements. It is not just an email preference.
Select the confirmation button with the intended result, then check the remaining order items, registrations and Invoices & Payments.
Completed registrations are not cancelled by an order edit. Check those participants separately instead of assuming that removing an item from the order has removed every registration or access.
To change an order’s courses, quantities, prices or billing details instead, see Change an Existing Order. To move a participant to another course or date, or to replace the person attending, see Move a Participant or Replace the Person Attending. When moving a registration that belongs to an order changes the order’s price, a second step shows the money change for you to confirm before the move is made.
Cancel a Participant Without Refunding Them (Remove Participant)
To take one participant off a booking and keep the money, select Remove Participant… on their row and choose No Financial Change (shown when the invoice has been paid) or The Invoice Stands (shown when it has not). The participant is removed, and the order keeps the purchased space and the full charge.
To cancel the whole booking and keep the money, use Cancel Order and choose Keep the money for each paid invoice.
Cancel a Registration Without Cancelling the Order
Use this when you are already working with one participant’s registration.
In the Admin Dashboard, open Registrations, select the registration, then select ⋯ > Cancel Registration. A completed registration cannot be cancelled through this action.
In Cancel this registration?, check Release the space from order [order ID] too, if shown. Leave it ticked to continue to the order-space change. Untick it if the order should keep its purchased space.
Select Cancel Registration. This cancels the registration first. If releasing an order space, a separate Remove Space, Remove Course or Cancel Order dialog follows.
Review and complete that second dialog if you intend to release the space and make its financial changes. Closing it does not undo the registration cancellation.
Check both the registration and its order. Do not assume the space or its discount use was released, or money refunded, solely because the registration says cancelled.
Why a Cancelled Registrant Got No Email and Still Counts as Booked
Cancelling only a registration does not send the participant a cancellation email. If you unticked Release the space from order [order ID] too, or closed the second dialog, the order keeps the space, so the place still counts as booked on the course date. To free the place, open the order and remove the space as described in the steps above. To tell the participant, email them yourself. Email the customer and participants exists only in Cancel Order, which cancels the whole order and everyone on it.
Remove a Custom Charge From an Order
A custom item is a charge under Other Items, such as room hire or catering, without participant spaces. To remove that charge while leaving the rest of the order, open the order as a System Admin, find the saved charge under Other Items, open its three-dot item menu and select Remove Item…. Review the invoice reduction and any credit or refund choice before confirming. Follow Change an Existing Order for the complete item-editing procedure.
If it is the order’s only remaining item, use Cancel Order instead. Removing the last course from a mixed order can leave the custom charges on an active order; it does not cancel the remaining charges. Customers cannot cancel or reschedule a booking themselves while its order includes custom charges, so the provider handles those changes.
Undo a Booking or Registration Cancelled by Mistake
Cademy has no button to undo or restore a cancellation. A cancelled order or registration stays cancelled, with its history. How you give the person their place back depends on what was cancelled.
First open the order and check what was saved. Ticking Release the space from order [order ID] too does not release the space by itself: the release happens in a second confirmation, and if that was closed, the order still holds the space.
If the order still shows an Unnamed space for the course: the order kept the place, so give it back to the same person:
Open the order. In Details, the place shows as an Unnamed space, not yet assigned.
Select Assign… on that row, or ⋯ > Assign a Participant….
In Add Participant, search for the same person under Search or create contact, then select Add Participant. The dialog confirms that this fills a space already paid for and changes nothing on the bill.
Check the order: the person is back on the same place with no new order, invoice or charge, and the course date’s booked places are unchanged.
Assigning creates a new registration for the person. The cancelled registration stays on the order, shown struck through. Cademy also emails the participant an invitation to the course, and the dialog has no option to stop that email. Do not add the person without an order or create a new order in this case: either would take a second place or charge them twice.
If the whole order was cancelled, or you have checked that the space was released from the order, book the person again:
To charge for the place or send an invoice, create a new order. See Create an Order to Book a Customer Onto a Course.
If you held the money as credit when cancelling, create the new order and use that credit on its invoice. See Manage Credit Notes and Customer Credit.
To give the place without a new charge, for example because you kept the money when cancelling, add the person without an order. Use this only when no order still holds a place for them. See Add Someone to a Course Without Creating an Order.
A cancelled registration does not count as a duplicate booking, so it does not stop you booking the same person again. Cademy has no action to reverse a refund: if you refunded the customer, take the new payment through the new order. If you are unsure which route fits, contact Cademy Support with the order reference before you create a replacement.
Refund Without Cancelling the Booking
To give back all or part of a payment and keep the booking, follow Refund a Customer in Full or in Part.
Refund Across Several Payments on One Invoice
For a refund that can use more than one payment on an invoice, see Refund a Customer in Full or in Part.
Refund Credit Already Held on a Credit Note
To refund credit already held for a customer, see Refund a Customer in Full or in Part.
Check Where a Refund Went and Whether It Worked
For refund destinations, refund emails and partly failed refunds, see Refund a Customer in Full or in Part.
If You Refunded Directly in Stripe or PayPal
For a refund made outside Cademy, see Refund a Customer in Full or in Part.
How Long a Refund Takes and Whether Fees Are Returned
For Stripe and PayPal refund times and processing fees, see Refund a Customer in Full or in Part.
Let Customers Cancel Their Own Bookings (Cancellation Policies)
Your cancellation policies decide whether customers can cancel or reschedule an eligible booking online themselves, by what deadline and with what cancellation fee. Set them in Settings > Cancellation Policies; see Set Cancellation and Rescheduling Policies. Only eligible Stripe card payments are refunded automatically when a customer cancels online; for other payment methods, you arrange any agreed refund. These policies do not apply a deadline or fee to the staff actions in this guide. For the customer’s steps, see Cancel or Reschedule Your Course Booking.
Frequently asked questions
Does cancelling an order refund the customer automatically?
Only if you choose a refund for a paid invoice in Cancel this order?. You can instead hold the money as credit or keep it. The final button shows the amount that will be refunded.
Does cancelling my Cademy subscription cancel my customers’ orders?
No. Your provider subscription and customer orders are separate. Use the order’s cancellation controls only when you intend to cancel that customer order.