When a volunteer leaves: suspend, deactivate, and billing

Summary

When someone stops volunteering, you suspend their account from their profile in Community. This article covers how to suspend a volunteer and undo it, what changes for that person, how removing a record entirely works, and what suspending does, and does not, do to your billing.

Who this is for

• Church Administrators with permission to manage volunteers
• Account Owners

What you’ll need

Make sure you have:

• Admin access with the capability to suspend or terminate volunteers
• The volunteer open in their Community profile

Before you start

Suspending is about access, not deletion. It stops the person from signing in and takes them out of your active roster, but it keeps their record, training history, references, and screening intact, so you can bring them back with one click if they return. Nothing is lost.

Removing a record entirely is deliberately not a self-serve button, because a safeguarding record needs to outlast a volunteer’s departure. If a record genuinely must be removed, that is handled by Safe Pathways support at admin@safepathways.com.

This article is about volunteers. An administrator account is separate, and suspending or reinstating an administrator is done on the Administrators tab in Settings.

Steps to suspend a volunteer

1. Open the volunteer’s profile

In Community, search for the volunteer and select their name to open their profile panel. See Getting Started: Community for finding people.

2. Select Suspend Volunteer

Select the red Suspend Volunteer button at the top of the panel and confirm. You need the volunteer-management capability for this, and you cannot suspend your own account.

[Screenshot: Volunteer profile panel with the red Suspend Volunteer button at the top-right]

3. Confirm what suspension does

Once confirmed, the volunteer cannot sign in until the suspension is undone. The action is recorded with who did it and when, and it appears in the volunteer’s activity history.

4. Undo a suspension if they return

To reverse it, open the same profile and select Undo Suspension. The volunteer can sign in again, and their record is exactly as they left it.

What happens next

A suspended volunteer cannot sign in, drops out of your Authorized Adult count, and appears under the dashboard’s Suspended group, while their full record stays preserved. See Getting Started: Your Admin Dashboard for where they show up. If they come back, Undo Suspension restores everything.

To erase a record entirely, contact admin@safepathways.com. This is intentionally not self-serve, to protect the compliance history your church may need years later.

What suspending does to your billing

Your bill is set by the tier you commit to, which is the number of Volunteer Accounts for your term. Suspending a volunteer is about login access, not your committed count.

• Suspending does not reduce what you are billed for the current term.
• Volunteer Accounts are non-transferable, so a suspended Account is not freed up to hand to someone else partway through the term.
• To pay for fewer Accounts, lower your committed count at renewal. Unassigning a pathway or removing a departed volunteer takes effect the following term, not the current one, and there is no refund for the unused part of the current term.
• Police Checks are billed directly by Canpro SOS, so suspending a volunteer has no effect on any check already ordered.

For how tiers and Volunteer Accounts work, see Billing and Volunteer Accounts. [VERIFY: confirm the precise mechanics, including whether suspending alone changes the billed or occupant count in the current term, and the exact point at which a departed volunteer stops counting (removing the volunteer, unassigning the pathway, or term renewal). The rule is that reductions apply to the following term, not the current one.]

Troubleshooting

The Suspend Volunteer button is not there

• Your admin role may not include the volunteer-management capability. Ask your Account Owner to review your clearance.
• You cannot suspend your own account; ask another administrator.

I suspended someone but my bill didn’t change

• That is expected. Suspension controls access, not your committed Account count, which changes at your next renewal.

I need to remove a volunteer completely

• Removal is not self-serve, to protect compliance history. Contact admin@safepathways.com with your church name and the volunteer.

A suspended volunteer still appears in my lists

• Their record is kept on purpose. Use the Active Only toggle to hide them, or look under the Suspended group on the dashboard. See Managing volunteers: search, filter, and profiles.

Notes

• Suspend blocks login, is reversible with Undo Suspension, and preserves the volunteer’s full record.
• Removing a record entirely is a Safe Pathways support action, not a self-serve button.
• Suspending does not change your billed Account count for the current term; reductions take effect the following term.
• Volunteer Accounts are non-transferable; Police Checks are billed by Canpro SOS regardless of suspension.
• For the renewal and expiry side of managing people, see Managing renewals and expirations.

Last reviewed

June 16, 2026