The inpatient module provides dedicated cancellation and refund pages for each bill type. All cancellations require privilege and record a reason; cancelled bills are retained in the database for audit purposes.

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Bill Type	Page	Notes
Final bill	/inward/inward_cancel_bill_final.xhtml	Cancels the final bill; returns BHT to pre-settlement state
Deposit bill	/inward/inward_cancel_bill_deposit.xhtml	Cancels a deposit (Deposit Reprint → To Cancel)
Payment bill	/inward/inward_deposit_cancel_bill_payment.xhtml	Cancels a payment made during the stay (Payment Reprint → To Cancel)
Professional fee bill	/inward/inward_cancel_bill_professional.xhtml	Cancels a professional fee bill
Provisional bill	/inward/inward_cancel_bill_provisional.xhtml	Cancels a provisional bill
Refund bill	/inward/inward_cancel_bill_refund.xhtml	Cancels an already-issued refund
Service bill	/inward/inward_cancel_bill_service.xhtml	Cancels a services & investigations bill
BHT bill (general)	/inward/bht_bill_cancel.xhtml	General BHT bill cancellation
Other payment bills	/inward/inward_cancel_bill_payment.xhtml	Used for payment bill types that have no dedicated page above

Each of these pages (other than the general BHT bill page) has an Inpatient Dashboard button next to its back buttons, both before and after the bill is cancelled, so you can return to the patient's dashboard without searching for the admission again.

The cancelled deposit's receipt header, with Inpatient Dashboard beside Back to Bill List.

After a deposit or payment is cancelled, the Cancellation Bill panel shows the cancellation receipt in the paper format set for inward payment bills. Use the Settings button on the panel to change it:

Paper format setting	Cancellation receipt printed
POS Paper	POS receipt
5×5 Paper or 5×5 Custom 3 Paper	5×5 receipt
A4 Paper	A4 receipt
None selected	POS receipt

The receipt shows the cancellation bill number, the original bill number, the cancellation date and time, the reason and the amount.

A deposit cancellation receipt on 5×5 paper.

The same cancellation on A4 paper.

A cancelled professional fee bill always prints its cancellation receipt on 5×5 paper. It does not depend on a paper type.

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Refund Type	Page	Notes
General inpatient refund	/inward/inward_bill_refund.xhtml	Refund against a settled bill
Service bill refund	/inward/inward_bill_service_refund.xhtml	Refund for a specific service bill item — InwardServiceController

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Pharmacy-related inpatient cancellations (issue cancellations, reprint) are handled by the pharmacy module. See:

• Inward Issue Cancellation
• Inward Issue Reprint

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When a bill is cancelled:

• The bill record is flagged cancelled = true and a CancelledBill record is created — the bill itself is not deleted
• Bill items and fee lines remain retired = false so that cancellation print-outs display correctly
• A new contra-bill may be created depending on the cancellation type
• The BHT totals are recalculated

Note: Cancellation does NOT set retired = true on bill fee lines. This distinction is important for reports and print-outs — cancelled bills remain queryable.

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Once a patient's nursing discharge has been confirmed (Inward > Search > Admissions > Nursing WorkBench > Nursing Discharge), the Return and To Cancel actions on that patient's inward service bills (/inward/inward_reprint_bill_service.xhtml, reached via Inward > Search > Service Bill) are disabled by default:

Before nursing discharge: both Return and To Cancel are enabled.

After nursing discharge: To Cancel is disabled. Return stays enabled here only because this user holds the escape-hatch privilege below.

This mirrors the nursing-discharge check that already existed for Add Charges (InwardAddChargesAfterNursingDischarge). Each action has its own escape-hatch privilege for staff who genuinely need to act after nursing discharge:

Action	Escape-hatch privilege
Return	InwardProcessReturnAfterNursingDischarge
Cancel	InwardProcessCancelAfterNursingDischarge

A user without the relevant privilege sees the button disabled in the UI; the same check is enforced server-side (InwardSearch.navigateToCancelInpatientBill() / .cancelBillService(), InwardServiceRefundController.navigateToRefundInwardServiceBill() / .refundInwardServiceBill()), so the restriction cannot be bypassed by a direct form submission.

The privileges above only unlock cancel/return for a bill that is still genuinely pending — nothing has been done with it yet. They are not a blanket override. Once a lab sample has been collected from the patient, an OPD bill has started lab processing, or a surgery has been validated/closed, cancellation and return are blocked unconditionally — no privilege, including the ones above, can bypass this (issue #23576, reopened 2026-09-08 after the initial fix above missed this; the threshold was tightened from "accepted" to "sent to lab" in issue #23598, then from "sent to lab" to "sample collected" in a 2026-09-27 follow-up to #23598). Returning a collected-sample test shows Cannot return "" - the sample has already been collected for this test.; cancelling shows "This bill is processed in the Laboratory."

The "To Cancel" button is enabled here because this user holds InwardProcessCancelAfterNursingDischarge — but the bill's lab investigation has already reached SAMPLE_ACCEPTED.

Submitting the cancellation is still blocked server-side, with "This bill is processed in the Laboratory." — the privilege only covers pending bills.

Bill type	What locks it	Enforced in
Inward service bill (incl. lab/OPD investigations billed as an inward service)	Lab sample reaches SAMPLE_COLLECTED or later, or a report has been entered	InwardSearch.checkCancelBill() / .checkInvestigation() (cancel), InwardServiceRefundController.checkLabSampleGuard() (return)
OPD bill	Same lab-processing check	BillSearch.cancelOpdBill() (cancel), BillSearch.sampleHasBeenCollected() via .refundOpdBill() (return)
Surgery bill	Surgery has been validated (Bill.completed, set by Validate Surgery, InwardSurgeryValidate)	InwardSearch.cancelSurgeryBill()

A regular (non-lab) inward service that is still pending remains cancellable/returnable by a user holding the nursing-discharge escape-hatch privilege, exactly as documented above — that behavior is unchanged.

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Every cancellation records:

• Cancelling user
• Cancellation timestamp
• Reason for cancellation

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• Inpatient — Final Bill Generation — the bill being cancelled
• Inpatient — Patient Deposits — deposit cancellations
• Inpatient — Final Bill Payment — payment cancellations