Archiving & Restoring Children

When a child leaves your setting you do not lose their record. Instead, Pigeonhole archives it — a soft delete that keeps all the child’s information safe and out of your day-to-day lists. You can restore an archived child at any time, or permanently delete their record if you no longer need it.

​

How Children Get Archived

There are two ways a child ends up in the archive:

• Removing a child from the main list. When you delete a child from your Children list, the child is not permanently removed — they are archived. You will see the message “The child has been archived” to confirm.
• Automatically, from a Leaving Date. If you set a Leaving Date on the child’s profile, the child is automatically moved to the archive the day after that date. See the Leaving Date field on the Attendance & Health page.

Once archived, a child no longer appears in your main children list, register, occupancy, or billing runs. They do still appear in the unbilled sessions report if their last weeks were never invoiced, so you can bill them before they’re forgotten.

​

Viewing an archived child’s sessions and charges

Open an archived child to see their Sessions and Charges tabs read-only, which is handy when a parent queries a final invoice. You can’t add, edit, copy or delete sessions or charges until the child is restored.

​

What happens to their parents and carers

Archiving a child also archives any parent or carer left with no children still attending. They move to Past Parents and lose access to your setting. A parent with another child still with you is unaffected, so siblings are handled automatically. Restoring the child brings their parents and carers back too.

​

Viewing Archived Children

1. Go to Children.
2. Open the Archive page.

The archive lists every archived child along with a Deleted Date showing when they were archived. Each row has two actions.

​

Restoring a Child

If a child was archived by mistake, or returns to your setting, you can bring their record back.

1. On the Archive page, find the child.
2. Click the Restore button (the undo icon).
3. Confirm when prompted.

The child is returned to your main children list with their record intact, and any parents or carers archived alongside them regain access. You will see the message “The child has been restored”.

​

Permanently Deleting a Child

If you are certain you no longer need a child’s record, you can permanently remove it.

1. On the Archive page, find the child.
2. Click the Hard Delete button (the bin icon).
3. Confirm when prompted.