When a volunteer leaves: termination, removal, and billing
Suspend with one click, bring people back just as easily, and know exactly what it means for your bill.
Summary
When someone stops volunteering, you terminate their account from their profile in Community. This article covers how to terminate a volunteer and reinstate them, what changes for that person, how removing a record entirely works, and what terminating 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 manage volunteers
- The volunteer open in their Community profile
Before you start
Terminating 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 if they return. Nothing is lost. Terminate replaces the earlier Suspend action; volunteers suspended before this change still show a Suspended badge on their row.
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 terminate a volunteer
1. Open the volunteer's profile
In Community, search for the volunteer and select their name to open their profile panel. See Community: your church's member list for finding people.
2. Select Terminate Volunteer
Select the red Terminate Volunteer button at the top of the panel. You'll be asked for a short reason, which is required and is kept with the record. You need the volunteer-management capability for this.
3. Confirm what termination does
Once confirmed, the volunteer cannot sign in until they are reinstated. The action is recorded with the reason, who did it, and when, and the profile shows a Terminated badge with the date.
4. Reinstate them if they return
To reverse it, open the same profile and select Reinstate Volunteer. You'll be asked for a reason here as well. The volunteer can sign in again, and their record is exactly as they left it.
What happens next
A terminated volunteer cannot sign in, drops out of your Authorized Adult count, and is flagged as Terminated on your dashboard and in Community, while their full record stays preserved. If they come back, Reinstate Volunteer 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 terminating does to your billing
Your bill is set by the tier you commit to, which is the number of Volunteer Accounts for your term. Terminating a volunteer is about access, not your committed count.
Billing starts when a pathway is first assigned to a person, and within a term your billed count only goes up, never down.
Terminating a volunteer, or unassigning their pathway, does not reduce what you are billed for the current term. The reduction takes effect the following term, at renewal, and there is no refund for the unused part of the current term.
Volunteer Accounts are non-transferable, so a terminated volunteer's Account is not freed up to hand to someone else partway through the term.
The one exception is a genuine mistake: an assignment can be voided from the volunteer's pathway list while the volunteer has not yet been notified or engaged with it, and voiding fully reverses that assignment's billing.
Police Checks are billed directly by Canpro SOS, so terminating a volunteer has no effect on any check already ordered.
For how tiers and Volunteer Accounts work, see Billing and Volunteer Accounts.
Troubleshooting
The Terminate Volunteer button is not there
Your admin role may not include the volunteer-management capability. Ask your Account Owner to review your clearance.
I terminated someone but my bill didn't change
That is expected. Termination 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 terminated volunteer still appears in my lists
Their record is kept on purpose, and their row shows a Terminated badge. Use your list filters to hide them. See Managing volunteers: search, filter, and profiles.
Notes
Terminate blocks sign-in, requires a written reason, is reversible with Reinstate Volunteer, and preserves the volunteer's full record.
Removing a record entirely is a Safe Pathways support action, not a self-serve button.
Terminating does not change your billed Account count for the current term; reductions take effect the following term. Voiding a genuinely mistaken assignment is the exception.
Volunteer Accounts are non-transferable; Police Checks are billed by Canpro SOS regardless of termination.
For the renewal and expiry side of managing people, see Managing renewals and expirations.