Auto-finalise
Auto-finalise is the per-syndicate option that lets Syndik8 finalise a member’s booking without an admin step. It is a fallback: the pilot normally closes their own booking after their last flight, where the syndicate lets members do so (the default). When auto-finalise is on, a sweep every 30 minutes finalises a booking the pilot left open once 24 hours have passed since it ended, provided at least one flight is logged, there is no minimum-usage shortfall, a look-back continuity check against the previous flight on the same asset succeeds, and every flight left from where the aircraft last landed (a booking that fails this is held as a departure conflict). The pilot and the admins are told about either kind of conflict as soon as the flight is logged. Saving a flight never finalises anything by itself.
The look-back check compares the booking’s first start meter to the last actually-flown reading on the asset, looking past any booking that recorded no usage (a no-show or an empty maintenance grounding), and each later leg’s start to the end of the leg before it. The outcomes:
- No earlier flight on the asset → finalises (this is the first flight), provided its start matches the aircraft’s opening reading when one is set.
- A later leg’s start disagrees with the leg before it → skips, like any other conflict below.
- Start matches the last flown reading (within 0.01 h tolerance) → finalises. This includes the case where the booking just before was a no-show or grounding that never moved the tacho.
- The immediately preceding flight is logged and its end disagrees with my start → skips and leaves the booking in the unfinalised queue. The pilot and admins were sent a Flight logs don’t follow on alert when the flight was logged; the sweep sends it only if that was missed.
- The immediately preceding booking has no log and the meter has jumped since the last flown reading (real flying went unlogged, or an out-of-order log is still to come) → waits silently. A later sweep re-attempts it when the missing log lands.
A booking with a shortfall is never finalised automatically; it waits for an admin, who is notified. Syndicates that prefer end-of-month admin reconciliation leave auto-finalise off and use the admin bulk path instead, which runs the same look-back check batched at month-end: see finalise multiple bookings at once.
Auto-finalise is on by default. Turning it off does not reverse any finalisations it has already run; existing completed bookings stay completed. When a finalised booking later turns out to have been wrong, the recovery is admin-driven and forward-only: see correct a finalised booking.