Cancellation terms

When you hold a date for one clinic, you turn down work from another. If that clinic then cancels the day before, you are left with an empty diary and no income. Cancellation terms set out how much notice a workplace must give, and what fee applies if they cancel inside that window. They are standard across Australian locum work, and most practice managers expect to see them.

Sessional lets you set a default once, attach it to every shift automatically, and raise a fee invoice when a late cancellation actually costs you. You are always the one who decides whether to charge.

Cancellation terms in Sessional are plain-English statements that travel with a shift. A typical set reads like a sliding scale: full notice means no fee, and the closer the cancellation gets to the day, the larger the fee. For example:

• 28 or more days' notice: no fee
• 7 to 28 days' notice: 50% of the agreed rate
• under 7 days' notice: 100% of the agreed rate

The wording is yours to set. You can use a single cut-off (for example, full fee inside 48 hours) or a graduated scale, whatever you have agreed with the workplace.

Different professions live with different lead times, so Sessional suggests a sensible default for yours based on how far ahead that work is usually booked and how hard it is to backfill at short notice:

• GP and specialist: a 28 and 7 day sliding scale. Sessions are booked well in advance and harder to refill late, so the notice period is longer.
• Pharmacist: three working days. Dispensary cover is often arranged closer to the day, so a shorter notice period fits the way the work runs.
• Nurse, paramedic, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, and psychologist: 24 hours. Shift-based and agency-adjacent work commonly turns over on very short notice.
• Dentist: seven days. Chair time and patient lists need planning ahead, so a week of notice is the norm.

Pick the Standard template and Sessional applies the default for your registered AHPRA profession. You can change it, write your own, or set no fee at all.

Set your default cancellation terms once in your profile. From then on, every new shift carries those terms, and they are printed on the booking confirmation you send the workplace, so the terms are agreed up front rather than argued about later.

Any individual shift can carry different terms. If a workplace negotiates a shorter notice period for one booking, or a request comes in with its own cancellation wording, that wording sticks to that shift only and leaves your default untouched.

A cancellation is recorded when a shift moves to cancelled. Your availability slot is released back to free automatically, so the date is open again, and the workplace contact is emailed to confirm the cancellation. You then decide whether a fee is due based on how much notice was given against your terms.

If the notice was generous and outside your window, there is nothing to charge. If it was inside your window and it cost you the day, you can raise a cancellation fee invoice.

For a shift cancelled inside your notice period, Sessional lets you generate a cancellation invoice from the shift. It is built like any other invoice: the workplace as the recipient, a clearly described cancellation charge based on the shift value and your terms, and your usual payment details. You can email it to the workplace, download it as a PDF, or sync it to Xero on the Pro plan.

You are never obliged to charge. For a genuine emergency, or to keep a good relationship with a workplace you want to keep working with, you can waive the fee. Sessional records the shift as cancelled with the fee waived in your audit trail, so there is a clear record of the decision, and simply does not raise a charge. The waive action is one click and is safe to repeat: marking an already-waived shift again changes nothing.