Who uses a seat, and how to free one

Your practice buys a number of seats, and every member of the practice occupies one by default. A seat is about being able to record a consult — it is not a login, and it is not a role.

Two numbers on the Overview describe this, and they are allowed to disagree:

• People with access — how many members can sign in.
• Seats used — how many members occupy a purchased seat.

If those two differ, the sections below say why.

Suspending someone does not free their seat

This is the one that surprises people. Suspending a member takes away their access — they cannot sign in — and they keep their seat. The practice is still paying for them.

That is deliberate. Suspension is usually temporary: parental leave, a secondment, an account you have locked while you look into something. The person is still a member of the practice, and their record, drafts and history stay exactly as they were. Freeing the seat would mean unpicking their membership, and giving it back later might not be possible if the practice had filled it in the meantime.

In the Users table a suspended member shows a seat icon with a small dot beside it. Hover it and it says so.

To actually free the seat, remove the member rather than suspending them.

Administrators who never record

Most practices have at least one person who runs Akoua without ever seeing a patient — a practice manager, an owner, an office administrator. They need the console. They do not need a seat.

Mark them Administrative access only:

1. Go to Users.
2. Open the ⋯ menu on their row and choose Organisation access.
3. Tick Administrative access only, and save.

They keep everything administrative — the console, the user list, billing, policies, the audit trail — and Akoua refuses to start a consult recording for them. That refusal is the reason the seat can be given back: the practice is not paying for a capability the person cannot use.

This is only offered for members whose role is org admin, because it is a description of an administrator, not a way to park a clinician.

The account owner can do this to themselves

In most practices the account owner is not a clinician, so the owner should not be paying for a seat either.

An owner can tick Administrative access only on their own row. Nobody else can do it to them — not another owner, not Akoua. Being barred from recording is a decision about your own clinical work, so it is yours to make and not someone else’s to make for you.

Owner and billing permissions are shown but not editable on your own row, so you cannot remove your own control of the practice by mis-clicking the checkbox beside it.

Getting a seat back

Clearing Administrative access only takes a seat back, and it meets the same rule as adding a member: if the practice is full, it is refused until a seat is free.

So before you give up your own seat, know that starting a consult again may mean adding a seat or freeing one first. The console warns you about this at the moment you tick the box.

Reading the Users table

The Seat column shows one icon per person. Hover any of them for the full explanation.

• A chair — occupies one of the purchased seats.
• A chair with a dot beside it — occupies a seat and is suspended: cannot sign in, still billed.
• A crossed-out chair — administrative access only: no seat, and cannot record.
• A dash — the server did not report seat occupancy for that row.

If more seats are occupied than purchased

The Overview raises this under Needs attention. Three things fix it, cheapest first:

1. Remove members who have left. Suspended former staff are the usual cause.
2. Mark non-recording administrators as administrative-only, as above.
3. Add seats in the billing portal.

Until it is resolved, new members cannot be invited, because accepting an invitation would take a seat the practice has not bought.