Close a booking

Close your own booking once you’ve logged your last flight on it, so the charge is posted and any time you didn’t use goes back on the calendar.

Before you start

Your syndicate must let pilots finalise their own bookings. That is on unless an admin has turned off Pilots finalise their own bookings on the syndicate’s Member billing screen. When it’s off, you aren’t offered the close sheet after saving a flight, there is no Close booking button or Home card, and your booking waits for an admin to finalise it (or for auto-finalisation, if that is on).
It must be your own confirmed booking, and it must have started.
At least one flight must be logged against it. A booking with no flight logged can’t be closed; if you didn’t fly, cancel it before it ends instead.
You must be online. Closing posts charges to the ledger, so it can’t be queued for later.
Closing is final. Once closed, the booking is completed (finalised) and you can’t add flights to it or close it again.

Close it straight after your last flight

Log your flight as usual; see Log a flight.
After you save, a sheet titled Is that your last flight on registration? appears. It shows:
- Flights and what they cost.
- A Minimum-usage shortfall line, with the hours and the amount, if your syndicate charges a minimum for the days you booked and you flew less than it. The sheet explains: “Your syndicate charges a minimum usage for each full day booked.”
- If closing shortens the booking, your syndicate charges the minimum on the booking as made, and there is a shortfall to charge: “The minimum is charged on your booking as made, until time.” See If you close early below.
- Total: what closing will post.
- If closing shortens the booking: “Your booking will end at time, and the rest of the slot is released for others to book.”
Tap Close booking and post £Z to finish, or Not yet, I’ll log more if you have another flight to log on this booking.

The sheet does not always come straight away. If you reported a defect, the squawk form opens instead, because recording the defect comes first. Otherwise, if you ticked I paid for this fuel personally, the expense form opens instead. The sheet appears only when neither applies; in the other cases, close the booking later (below).

Close it later

Either of these works while the booking is still open:

From the booking. Open it and tap Close booking (Post the charge and free the rest of the slot). It appears on your own confirmed booking once it has started and a flight is logged.
From the Home screen. A Finished with registration? card names the booking’s date (“Booking on date. Close it to post the charge.”). Tap Close booking. The card appears when you’re online, for your own confirmed bookings that have started, have a flight logged and aren’t yet finalised, from the last 7 days. It is not shown for a booking while another flight on it is in progress on the End Flight card: finish that flight first.

Both open the same sheet as above.

What closing does

Posts every charge for the booking at once: each flight, any event fees, and the shortfall if there is one. By closing you accept the charge the sheet showed you.
Marks the booking completed (finalised). Its charges appear on your balance.
Frees the rest of the slot if you close early. The booking’s end moves to the next half-hour after now. It never moves earlier than the latest landing or on-blocks time logged on the booking, and never later than the booking’s original end. The released time can be booked by others straight away.
You aren’t sent a Booking finalised notification: you closed it yourself.

If you close early

Closing early always frees the aircraft. What your syndicate decides is which times the minimum usage is worked out on. An admin sets this on the Asset rates screen, under If a pilot finishes early, charge the minimum on:

The booking as made (the default): the minimum is worked out on the booking’s original times, as if you hadn’t closed early.
Only the time they kept: the minimum is worked out on the shortened booking. A day it no longer covers for 8 of the core hours (08:00 to 20:00) doesn’t count towards the minimum.

For example, G-QSYN costs £180 an hour, with a weekend minimum of 3 hours and a shortfall rate of £100 an hour. You book Saturday 08:00 to 20:00, fly for one hour, and close at 11:50. Your booking now ends at 12:00, and the afternoon is free for others to book.

	The booking as made	Only the time they kept
Times the minimum is worked out on	08:00 to 20:00: Saturday counts	08:00 to 12:00: only 4 core hours, so Saturday doesn’t count
Minimum	3 h	None
Flights	£180	£180
Minimum-usage shortfall	2 h at £100: £200	None
Total posted	£380	£180

The sheet shows the charge on your syndicate’s basis before you agree to it. Afterwards, the booking shows “Minimum usage worked out on the booking as made, until date and time” whenever it was closed early on that basis, even when your flying met the minimum. The basis is fixed when you close: if an admin changes the setting later, your closed booking is not repriced.

If you don’t close it

If your syndicate has auto-finalisation on (the default), a booking you leave open is finalised automatically 24 hours after it ends, provided your start reading follows the previous flight’s end reading and there is no shortfall. A booking with a shortfall waits for an admin to review it instead. With auto-finalisation off, an admin finalises it.

If it goes wrong

A close refusal and a notification can arrive at different times. New alerts about mismatches between bookings wait for uploads to settle; see the alert timing rules.

The sheet says “Close your booking later”. You’re offline: “You’re offline. When you’re back online you can see the charge and close this booking, from the booking or the Home screen.” Nothing is queued, and nothing closes when your device syncs. Close it from the booking or the Home screen once you have a connection.
The sheet says your flight is still uploading. The flight hasn’t reached the server yet. Close the booking from the booking once it has arrived.
“This booking can’t be closed here”, with “Your syndicate doesn’t let members close their own bookings, so this one will be finalised for you.” An admin has turned off Pilots finalise their own bookings, and your screen hadn’t caught up. Nothing is posted. An admin finalises the booking, or auto-finalisation does if it is on.
The sheet refuses to close the booking. It explains why. The reasons are:
- No flight is logged on it yet.
- One flight looks logged on it twice (typically once on the Apple Watch and once on the phone): two logs cover the same time, or have the same start and end readings, and both would be charged. Remove the spare log from the booking, then close it. If you can’t remove it (an admin entered it, or it reported a defect), ask an admin. See If the flight is already logged.
- The booking hasn’t started.
- It’s already finalised.
- “A flight’s start reading doesn’t follow on from the flight before it. If your log is wrong, correct it and close the booking again. Otherwise an admin will review it and finalise the booking.” One of your flights started on a reading other than where the flight before it ended, above it or below it, whether that flight was an earlier leg of yours, the last one before your booking, or, with no earlier eligible booking on the aircraft, its opening reading (a tacho-continuity conflict). Log Flight shows where your flight should start when you edit it.
- The previous flight on the aircraft hasn’t been logged yet. The preceding booking has no usage and your reading differs from the latest genuine end reading or opening reading, or there is no reading to compare. It may have been unused, or its flights may still be offline or not yet entered. A matching reading can look past empty bookings; a differing one waits. Try again when the missing log arrives, or ask an admin to review the booking if no log is expected.
- “This flight didn’t leave from where the aircraft last landed. If your log is wrong, correct it and close the booking again. Otherwise an admin will review it and finalise the booking.” One of your flights left from somewhere other than where the flight before it landed, whether that flight was an earlier leg of yours or the last one before your booking (a departure conflict).
- For either of these, you can correct your own flight log, not someone else’s, while the booking is still open. Once the logs follow on, the Flight logs don’t follow on alert is withdrawn and you can close the booking again.
- The syndicate is closed.
The sheet shows a different total when you tap Close. The charge changed between opening the sheet and tapping, because another flight arrived or a rate changed. The sheet shows the new total for you to agree to; nothing is posted at the old figure.
I closed it and then remembered another flight. You can’t log it yourself: a closed booking has no Log Usage button. Ask an admin: they can’t add a flight to a closed booking, but they can charge for it with Add charge or credit on the booking; see Correct a finalised booking. You’re sent a Booking charge corrected notification with the amount. The exception is a flight that was still in progress when you closed, on the End Flight card or your Apple Watch. Finish and save it as usual: it is kept, and your syndicate’s admins are told it hasn’t been billed yet. You’ll see “Flight logged. This booking was already finalised, so an admin has been asked to add this flight to its charge.”
There’s no Close booking button. Your syndicate doesn’t let members close their own bookings, or the booking isn’t yours, it hasn’t started yet, no flight is logged on it, it’s already finalised, it’s a maintenance booking, or the syndicate is closed.