Does a holiday closure lower per-lesson invoices?

Applies to: Owner, Manager
PLUS Feature: No
Plan: All
Last updated: November 5, 2026

Overview
Mark the lessons Closed first
How the new invoice amount is worked out
Which lessons still count toward the charge
Close or cancel: two ways to make up for a closed day
Discounts, fees, and sales tax
Invoices that are already paid
Lessons booked after the closure was added
Subscription holds and closures
Teacher pay is set separately
If you remove a closure
Check before the invoice goes out
FAQ
Related Articles

Overview

Some studios charge a fixed monthly tuition. Others charge for each lesson on the calendar, so a five-lesson month costs more than a four-lesson month. In Opus1.io, the second kind is a payment plan whose How is it charged? setting is Variable rate based on number of visits. The price on the plan is the price of one lesson, and each invoice is that price multiplied by the lessons in the billing period.

When the studio closes for Thanksgiving, a winter break, or a snow day, families on these plans expect to pay for one fewer lesson. Opus1.io handles that for you, as long as the lessons on those dates are marked Closed.

Why: Getting the closure right before invoices go out saves a round of "why was I charged for a day you were closed?" emails, and the refunds that tend to follow them.

This article covers per-lesson plans for:

Private lessons and group classes
Monthly billing, where each invoice covers the lessons in that month
Once billing, where one invoice covers every lesson in the term

It does not cover flat-rate plans, tuition-table plans, single visits, or lesson packs. A flat monthly price stays the same when you close a date. If you want to reduce a flat-rate invoice for a closure, add a discount to that invoice yourself.

Mark the lessons Closed first

Adding closed hours or days to a location stops new bookings on those dates. It does not change lessons that are already on the calendar, so it does not change any invoice either. After you save the closure, Opus1.io reminds you that existing appointments are not updated automatically.

To bring the invoices into line:

Add the closure to the location under Closed Hours / Days, and click Update Business to save it.
Select the red warning next to the closure. The Location Closure window opens and shows how many private lessons and class dates are still active on those dates, and how many are already Closed.
Click Set All As Closed.

Each lesson now shows (closed) on the calendar. At the same moment, Opus1.io recalculates every unpaid invoice on a per-lesson plan that includes those lessons.

The full walkthrough, including partial-day closures and studios with more than one location, is in Why are lessons still scheduled on my closed dates?

⚠️ Warning: Closing a lesson never issues a makeup credit. If your policy is to give families a makeup for a closure, batch cancel the lessons from the main schedule instead of marking them Closed. See Close or cancel: two ways to make up for a closed day.

How the new invoice amount is worked out

Charge = price per lesson × billable lessons in the billing period

Opus1.io rewrites the plan line on the invoice to show the new count. A monthly line looks like this:

Monthly piano - Starting on March 2, 2026 - 4 x $40

A term billed once uses the same pattern: the plan name, the start date, and the number of lessons times the price.

A month with one closure

Maya takes piano every Monday at $40 a lesson. March 2026 has five Mondays, so her open invoice is 5 × $40 = $200.

The studio closes on one of those Mondays and marks the lesson Closed. Her open invoice becomes 4 × $40 = $160.

A full term billed once

A 40-lesson guitar term is billed once at $45 a lesson: 40 × $45 = $1,800.

Five dates in the term are marked Closed, including some near the end of the term. The open invoice becomes 35 × $45 = $1,575.

Opus1.io counts every billable lesson in the term, so a closure in May lowers a term invoice that was issued in September, provided that invoice is still unpaid.

Which lessons still count toward the charge

A Closed lesson is not the only lesson that can change the count. This is how Opus1.io treats each kind of lesson on a per-lesson plan.

Private lessons

What happened to the lesson	Charged?	Why
Still scheduled, or already taught	Yes	The lesson is happening or has happened.
Canceled by the family, including a late cancellation	Yes	The family gave up the slot. Your cancellation policy decides whether they get a makeup.
Canceled by the teacher	Only when Should staff canceled visits be counted in per visit billing? is on	A teacher cancellation can also issue a credit, so you choose whether the family pays for the lesson as well.
Marked (closed) for a location closure	No	The studio was closed. No credit is issued, so not charging is the family's compensation.
Removed from the schedule	No	There is no lesson to charge for.

A family cancellation and a location closure are easy to mix up. Canceling the student still bills the lesson. Closing the location does not.

Group classes

A class date counts when it is still scheduled or has already been taught. Marking a class date Closed removes it from the count for every student enrolled in that group class on a per-lesson plan, and each of those students' unpaid invoices is recalculated.

Teacher-canceled class dates depend on how the plan bills:

Monthly: a teacher-canceled date counts only when Should staff canceled visits be counted in per visit billing? is on.
Once, for the whole term: teacher-canceled dates are never counted.

Close or cancel: two ways to make up for a closed day

When the studio is closed, Opus1.io gives you two ways to treat the missed lesson. They compensate the family differently, and which one fits depends on how the family's plan is priced.

Close the lesson with Set All As Closed on the location. No credit is issued.
Cancel the lesson with a batch cancel from the main schedule. It becomes a teacher cancellation, and a makeup credit is issued if the service's staff cancellation policy gives one.

Plan	If you close the lesson	If you cancel the lesson
Per lesson, billed monthly	The lesson comes off the invoice. The family pays less and gets no makeup.	The family gets a makeup credit. The lesson stays on the invoice only when Should staff canceled visits be counted in per visit billing? is on.
Per lesson, group class term billed once	The class date comes off the invoice.	The family gets a makeup credit if the policy gives one. The date comes off the invoice.
Flat rate	The invoice stays the same and the family gets no makeup, so they receive nothing for the day.	The invoice stays the same and the family gets a makeup credit.

On a flat-rate plan, canceling is usually the right tool, because closing leaves the family paying full price for a lesson that never happened. On a per-lesson plan, closing already lowers the bill. Canceling as well, with the staff-canceled setting off, gives the family both a lower bill and a makeup for the same day.

Why: Studios that copy a flat-rate studio's habit of issuing credits for every closure can end up compensating per-lesson families twice. Decide which model your studio uses for each plan before the next holiday.

Discounts, fees, and sales tax

Opus1.io recalculates discounts that depend on the number of lessons on the same invoice, so a family's discount shrinks in step with their bill.

Percent off. A 10% sibling discount on a 40-lesson term at $50 is 10% of $2,000, or $200 off. After five closures the term is 35 × $50 = $1,750, and the discount becomes $175 off.
An amount off each lesson. A $5-per-lesson discount is $5 × the lesson count. Forty lessons is $200 off. Thirty-five lessons is $175 off.
A flat discount on the subscription. Opus1.io takes it off each billable lesson, then multiplies by the new count. Ten dollars off a $40 lesson, with four lessons left in the month, is $40 off. The discount is capped at the price of one lesson, so no lesson goes below $0.

Sign-up fees and registration fees stay the same when a lesson is closed. Sales tax is recalculated on the new invoice total.

Invoices that are already paid

Opus1.io only rewrites open invoices.

Invoice status when you close the lesson	What happens
Open, not yet paid	The balance due drops. Autopay collects the new amount on its usual date.
Closed, paid in full	The amount stays the same. Opus1.io does not refund the card, add account credit, or reopen the invoice.

If a family has already paid and your policy is to give the money back for a closed date, do it yourself. You can refund part of the payment, add monetary credit to the family's account for a later invoice, or discount the next invoice.

Why: Families often pay a term up front, months before a snow day. Leaving paid invoices alone means a closure never moves money on a card without someone at the studio deciding it should.

Lessons booked after the closure was added

When you book a recurring private lesson, Skip booking when location is not available is on by default. For a group class, the matching setting is Skip scheduling date(s) when location is not available.

With the setting on, Opus1.io leaves dates that already fall on a closure off the schedule, so they are never on the first invoice. The count starts from the dates that can actually be taught.

If you turn the setting off, the subscription notes that recurring lessons will not be skipped when the location is unavailable. Those lessons stay on the schedule, and are billed, until you mark them Closed.

Why: Adding the year's holidays to each location before you book recurring lessons means most families' invoices are right from the first one.

Subscription holds and closures

A per-lesson subscription on hold is billed only for the lessons outside the hold. Opus1.io leaves Closed lessons out of both counts, the month's total and the lessons inside the hold, so a closure never reduces the same invoice twice.

Set All As Closed skips lessons that are already on hold. Those lessons stay in the month's count, and the hold takes them off the invoice instead.

The Count location closures switch does not appear when you place a per-lesson subscription on hold. It belongs to flat-rate plans that prorate by the number of visits. How holds change an invoice is covered in What happens to the invoice when a student is on hold?

Teacher pay is set separately

A teacher's pay rate has its own Count location closures? setting. It appears when advanced payroll is turned on for your studio.

Off, which is the usual choice: the teacher is not paid for a Closed lesson.
On: the teacher is paid for the Closed lesson.

Either way, the family's per-lesson invoice in Opus1.io still leaves the Closed lesson out. Paying a teacher through a holiday week does not put that lesson back on the family's bill.

If you remove a closure

Deleting the closed hours from a location reopens booking on those dates, but it does not put lessons back on the schedule by itself.

To reopen upcoming lessons that were closed because of a closure you have since removed, use Resync calendar in your business settings. Opus1.io reopens upcoming lessons on dates that are no longer closed. Lessons that have already happened stay Closed. Unpaid per-lesson invoices are recalculated again as the lessons return to the schedule.

To reopen a single lesson instead, open it from the main schedule and use Override Appointment Status to set it back to Active.

Afterward, open an affected family's unpaid invoice and confirm the lesson count went back up.

Check before the invoice goes out

Mark the lessons Closed. Saving the closed dates on the location is not enough.
Open one affected family's unpaid invoice. Check the lesson count on the plan line, the plan total, and any discount lines.
If that family's invoice is already paid, decide whether your policy calls for a refund or a credit, and add it yourself.

💡 Tip: Opus1.io does not email or text families when lessons are marked Closed. If you want households to know about the closure, and that their bill reflects it, send that message yourself.

FAQ

Our tuition is a flat monthly price. Why didn't the invoice change? A flat rate stays the same whatever the number of lessons in the month, and that includes closures. If you want to reduce a flat-rate invoice for a closed week, add a discount to that invoice. If your studio wants tuition to follow the calendar every month, a per-lesson plan may be a better fit.

I closed one lesson. Why did the invoice drop by less than the lesson price? A percent or per-lesson discount on the invoice shrinks along with the lesson count, so the family loses a little of their discount as well. Sales tax is recalculated on the lower total too. Read the plan line and the discount line together.

Can I close one teacher's lessons without closing the whole location? No. A closure covers every lesson at that location on those dates. If one teacher is out, assign a substitute or cancel that teacher's lessons from the main schedule.

Why are lessons still scheduled on my closed dates? — the full Set All As Closed walkthrough, including partial-day closures
Canceling vs. Closing Appointments and Group Classes — choosing between no credit and a makeup credit for a closure
Setting up payment plans for your appointment-based services — flat rate or per lesson, and where the staff-canceled setting lives
Full Group Class Payment Plans with Per-Visit Pricing — setting up a group class term priced per class date
What happens to the invoice when a student is on hold? — how a hold reduces a per-lesson invoice
How do I add monetary credits to a client's account? — returning money for a closed date on an invoice that is already paid