Recording attendance and what happens after a session

At a Glance

Once a session has passed, TherapyLock asks you to say whether the client attended, and that single answer feeds your session note, your payments and your practice hours.

Before you start

Nothing to prepare. TherapyLock comes and finds you: about fifteen minutes after a session was due to end, the appointment moves into Needs Action on your calendar and waits there until you say what happened.

You do not have to deal with it straight away. Sessions sit in Needs Action for as long as you leave them, so a run of appointments can be cleared at the end of the day or the end of the week.

Marking what happened

1. Open your calendar and find the appointment, either in Needs Action or on the day itself.

1. Click it. The Record Attendance dialog opens: "This session has ended. Please record whether the client attended."

1. Choose one of three:

• Attended for a session that went ahead
• Did Not Attend for a client who did not arrive and did not tell you
• Mark as Cancelled, set slightly apart below the other two, for a session called off in advance

If the client attended

TherapyLock confirms the session and opens Session Complete, which asks what you would like to do next. Three things are on offer, and you can take any, all or none of them.

Record the fee. Mark the session paid, unpaid, or no charge. Anything marked unpaid appears in Outstanding on your Payments page until you settle it there.

Create Session Note. This is the quickest route into writing up. It opens the client's record with the note form already open and the date, duration and session mode filled in from the appointment, so you begin at the writing rather than the admin.

Book Next Session. Offers the same day and time the following week. One press and it is in the diary.

Then Done, and you are back on the calendar.

If you have already written up this session, TherapyLock notices and says so rather than offering a second note. It shows View Client Record instead.

If the client did not attend, or the session was cancelled

TherapyLock asks the question that actually matters for your books: is this session still charged?

Four answers:

• Yes, charge the usual rate. Adds it to outstanding payments until you mark it paid
• No charge. Waived, and it stays out of your payment totals
• The session is being moved. For when you are rearranging rather than charging
• Decide later. Leaves it open

For a cancellation there is one more question: who cancelled this session? Choose the client, yourself, or Other, and add a short reason. If you choose Other the reason becomes required, because "Other" on its own tells you nothing when you look back in two years.

What happens next

Marking a session Attended does more than clear it off the calendar.

• It counts towards your practice hours, which draw on every session marked as attended, kept separately for clients and supervisees
• It moves the appointment from Needs Action into Completed
• Any fee you recorded flows through to Payments
• A session marked Did Not Attend appears in your No-shows figure

This is why it is worth keeping on top of. Practice hours and payment totals are only as accurate as the attendance behind them.

If something's not right

• Deleting a recurring series takes completed sessions with it. If you remove "all appointments" in a repeating series, appointments you had already marked as attended go too, while any session notes you wrote stay behind on the client record. Delete individual appointments rather than the series where you can.

• "Reason Required" appears if you mark a session cancelled without saying who cancelled it or giving a reason. Choose one of the options or write a line in the box.

• The session is not in Needs Action yet. There is a short grace period after a session is due to end. Give it a few minutes and refresh.

• You need to record a session that already happened, perhaps an unexpected drop-in. Book it on the real date and TherapyLock will check you meant to: "Are you recording a session that already happened?" Confirm, and you can mark attendance as normal.

Related articles

• Your appointment calendar

• Why session notes cannot be edited, and how amendments work

• The client record

Still Need Help?

If you have any other questions about TherapyLock, our support team is here to help.

Email us at support@counsellingtutor.com and we will be happy to assist.