> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.samesystem.dev/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.samesystem.dev/business-guides/employee-lifecycle-management/terminate-employees/cancellation-of-future-hire.md).
# Cancellation of future hire
If an employee is hired, but the employment is cancelled before the employee starts, you will have the following options to terminate the employee:
The employee has not been created
No need to do anything.
The employee has been created without a contract
No need to do anything.
or
Delete the user
See notice below.
Employee and contract have been created
Terminate user or
Delete a user
See notice below
If a contract has been created, you can see under Contracts that the employment will be ended after the termination date.
{% hint style="warning" %}
**Notice:**
There is an API endpoint for deleting a user. Using this endpoint will permanently remove the user and all associated data, including schedules, logs, files, and historical records.
When the delete endpoint is called, the user is immediately disabled, and the system schedules a background job to permanently destroy the user after 24 hours. During this 24-hour window, the user can still be restored by a supervisor at SameSystem.
The recommended method is to terminate a user. Termination preserves all user data in the system and allows you to rehire the user later or review their historical information.
A terminated user will not have access to the system from the termination date onward, but their data remains available for reporting and audit purposes.
**User without a contract:**\
If a user has been created without a contract, there is no need to terminate them because they are in draft status, and draft users cannot be terminated. You can delete the user if you need to destroy the user completely.\
\
**User with contract:**\
To cancel a future hire with a future existing contract, terminating the contract will leave the user with at least a one-day contract, which is often unintended if the goal is to completely avoid any contract. In these cases, user deletion is the better approach if there are no other contracts. We do not allow removal of the first contract.
{% endhint %}
---
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