Mapping Makeup Credits to Makeup Services

Why this matters

Without proper mapping, students end up with credits that can't be booked. That creates three problems for your school:

1. Confusion at booking time, which generates support questions for your front desk.
2. Underused credits, because students give up trying to redeem them.
3. Mismatched durations — a cancelled 30-min lesson should not turn into a credit for a 60-min lesson, and vice versa. Mapping keeps the swap fair for both you and the student.

The good news: it's a one-time setup per service, and once it's in place, Opus1 handles the rest automatically.

Before you start

A short checklist before you click into the settings:

• Your makeup services are already created. You'll need a separate makeup service for each duration you offer (e.g. 30-min Piano Makeup, 45-min Piano Makeup, 60-min Piano Makeup). If you don't have these yet, create them first.
• You know which durations you offer. The mapping should match duration for duration: 30-min regular maps to 30-min makeup, 45-min regular maps to 45-min makeup, and so on.
• You've decided your late-cancellation policy. Late cancellations can either forfeit the visit (no credit) or issue a credit. This guide covers both.

Table of Contents

1. Understanding cancellation credits
2. Where to find the settings
3. Client visit cancellations
4. Client late visit cancellations
5. Staff visit cancellations
6. Final steps

Understanding cancellation credits: timing, validity, and limits

When a cancellation is “on time” vs “late”

Your service’s late-cancellation rules decide which policy path applies (for example, whether a make-up credit is issued or forfeited).

• Hours before the lesson: If you use this mode, you set how many hours before the scheduled start a cancellation must be made to stay “on time.” Cancellations inside that window—too close to the start—are treated as late.

• Cutoff by day and clock time (optional advanced mode): Instead of a simple hour count, you can define rules such as “after 8:00 PM the day before a Tuesday lesson, that lesson is late-cancel.” The exact days and times come from your configuration.

Only one of these approaches applies per service, depending on how you configured late cancellation.

Credit validity (how long a make-up credit lasts)

When your policy issues a service (make-up) credit for a cancellation, you can control how long that credit remains usable:

• Validity length: You can set a number of days the credit is good for. If you do not set a period (or it is treated as open-ended in your setup), the credit may not get an automatic end date the same way.

• What day the clock starts

  • From when the cancellation happens: the expiry is counted from the moment the booking is canceled.
  • From the original lesson time: the expiry is counted from the scheduled start of the lesson that was canceled (useful when you want “use this make-up within X days of when that slot would have been,” not from the cancel button).

You can set this separately for on-time client cancellations and late client cancellations (when your late policy still issues a credit). Staff-initiated cancellations that issue a credit typically use a simple “days from when the credit was issued” validity, not tied to the original lesson start in the same way as the client options above.

Caps and rolling periods (how many credits someone can get)

Studios often use two layers of limits. They work together with your choice of on-time vs late rules.

1. Cap on outstanding cancellation credits (per subscription)

This limits how many unused make-up credits from client cancellations someone can have at any given time on a given subscription (for the “on-time” path, and separately you can set a cap for the “late” path if late cancellations also issue credits).

In practice: if a student is already at the limit, another cancellation may not add a new credit until they use an existing one (or the studio handles the situation another way). This is about open credits, not lifetime history.

2. Cap within a rolling time window (per subscription)

This is phrased as allowing up to x credits within the last x days (a rolling window, counted backward from today).

Credits that were already used still count toward that window’s total, so this behaves like a rate limit on how often cancellation credits can be earned, not only “how many are sitting unused.”

When both this rolling cap and the outstanding cap exist, either limit can block a new credit.

Note: The rolling window limit applies to client cancellation credits in the way the product is wired today; your on-time vs late settings still determine whether a credit is offered, but the rolling window counts the same kind of client-cancellation credits for both paths once a credit would be issued.

In practice: if your settings allow 2 credits in a 90 day period, and a student goes to cancel a 3rd lesson in that 90 rolling window, they won't be issued a credit, even if they've used the previous two. This helps limit perpetual cancellations. 

Where to find the settings

Makeup credit mapping lives on the Cancellation tab of a service's edit page. Here's how to get there: 

1. Open the Services page

Click services in the left hand navigation menu and you'll see all of your services listed

2. Click Update on the service you want to configure

Find the regular service you want to set up (for example, Piano Private Lessons - 30 min) and click the update button on the right: 

This opens the service's edit page, which has several tabs across the top. 

3. Open the Cancellation Tab

Click the cancellation tab. This is where all of the mapping happens. You'll see a Cancellation Policy section at the top, followed by three separate sections - one for each kind of cancellation. 

↓

The three sections you'll configure are: 

1. Client Visit Cancellation - when a student cancels on time (or before the late cancellation cut-off)
2. Client Late Visit Cancellation - when a student cancels after the cut-off (e.g. less than 24 hours before the lesson)
3. Staff Visit Cancellation - when you or a teacher has to cancel (e.g. teacher absence)

Each one will have its own makeup credit mapping. They work the same way, so once you've done the first, the others will feel familiair. 

Section 1: Client Visit Cancellation

This is the most common case: a student cancels their lesson before the late cancellation cut-off. You'll typically issue a credit so they can rebook. 

• Click the edit pencil on the right side of the Client Visit Cancellation section
• In the first dropdown, choose Automatically issue a service credit
• Give the credit a label that students will see (e.g. Student Absence)
• Find the field labeled "Should the service for the credit issued be for a different service" and toggle it ON
• In the dropdown that appears, select the matching makeup service - for a 30 minute regular lesson, choose the 30 minute makeup service 

When you open the dropdown, you'll see every service in your school, including the original (non-makeup) version of the service you're editing. Read the next callout carefully - this is where most setup mistakes happen. 

When you're happy with the settings, click update service at the bottom of the page to save. 

Section 2 : Client Late Visit Cancellation

Late cancellations are when a student cancels after the cutoff — usually within 24 hours of the lesson. You have two choices here:

• Forfeit the visit — the student loses the lesson, no credit is issued. Stricter, simpler.

• Issue a credit anyway — the student still gets a makeup credit. More forgiving.

If you choose to forfeit, there's nothing more to set up — no mapping is needed. If you choose to issue a credit, the same makeup mapping field appears, just like in Client Visit Cancellation.

• Click the edit pencil on the Client Late Visit Cancellation setting
• Open the dropdown and choose Automatically issue a service credit
• If you choose a service credit, the rest of the form appears, including the same mapping toggle: "For late client cancellation, should the service for the credit issued be a different service than the one cancelled?" Toggle it ON and pick the matching makeup service
• Click the update service button at the bottom of the page to save 

Section 3: Staff Visit Cancellation

When the school cancels a lesson — for example, a teacher is sick — you almost always want to issue a credit so the student doesn't lose out.

• Click the edit pencil on the Staff Visit Cancellation section
• In the first dropdown, choose Automatically issue a service credit
• Give the credit a label (e.g. "Teacher Absence").
• Find the toggle labeled "For staff cancellation - Should the service for the credit issued be a different service than the one canceled?" Toggle ON and select the matching makeup service.
• Click the update service button at the bottom of the page to save

Verify your mapping

Once you've saved the changes, you can quickly confirm everything looks right without re-entering edit mode:

1. Stay on the Cancellation tab.
2. In each section, find the row labeled "Should the service for the credit issued be a different service than the one canceled?" (or, in Staff Visit, "For staff cancellation - Should the service…").
3. Confirm the value shows the makeup service name (e.g. "Piano Private Makeup Lessons - 30 min"), not the regular one.

If the value shows the regular service name, click the edit pencil and re-select the makeup version.

Repeat for each service

The mapping is configured per service — so if you offer 30-min, 45-min, and 60-min Piano lessons, you'll repeat this setup three times. The same applies for other instruments. It's a one-time job per service, but it does need to be done individually.

Once every regular service is mapped to its makeup counterpart, your cancellation flow runs cleanly: students get usable credits, your front desk gets fewer support questions, and your makeup slots get put to good use.

Need help?

If a credit doesn't behave the way you expect — for example, a student can't book it into the makeup slot you intended — the mapping is the first place to look. Re-open the relevant cancellation section, confirm the makeup service is selected, and verify the durations match. Reach out to support@opus1.io if anything still seems off.

Related Articles:

• How do I update my service's cancellation policies?
• How do I ensure only makeup lessons are booked during cancellations?