Set up the Rego & CTP Reminder Workflow

What it does

The Rego & CTP Reminder Workflow is the highest-ROI feature for an Australian workshop. It tracks the rego expiry date (and, for NSW, the CTP green-slip expiry) per customer-vehicle, then auto-sends an SMS and email at 30 / 14 / 3 days before expiry. Most independent workshops recover 2-4 service bookings per week from customers who would otherwise drift to the dealer.

Prerequisites

• Your tenant is on the automotive business type (Settings, then Business Profile)
• The rego and CTP reminder tables are switched on for your account. We do that when the automotive workshop app is installed, so there is nothing for you to run.
• SMS and email sending are configured on your account. Without them the nightly reminder job still records who is due, it just cannot send the message.

Step 1: Enter rego expiry on a vehicle

There are three ways to enter the rego data per vehicle:

1. On the vehicle detail page: open any vehicle, scroll to the Rego renewal banner. Pick the state, enter the rego expiry date, and (for NSW) the CTP expiry date. Hit Save rego dates.
2. In the vehicle edit modal: from the vehicles list, click Edit on any row. The Rego renewal fieldset sits below Engine / Current KM.
3. Via CSV bulk import: use the columns rego_state, rego_expiry_date, and ctp_expiry_date. See the bulk import article in this category for the full schema.

Step 2: Verify the dashboard alerts

Once one vehicle has a rego date set, your workshop dashboard surfaces two new callouts:

• Red top-row alert: vehicles whose rego has already expired. These need urgent operator action: the customer can't legally drive away from your bay until it's sorted.
• Amber soft callout: vehicles whose rego expires in the next 30 days. These are your inbound rebooking pipeline.

Click either to drill into a filtered vehicles list (?filter=rego_expired or ?filter=rego_expiring_soon).

Step 3: The reminder cron

The rego reminder cron runs daily at 7:45am AEST. For each active vehicle with a rego date set:

• Reminder windows: 30, 14, and 3 days before expiry; or up to 7 days past expiry (grace window)
• Per-vehicle throttle: max one email + SMS per 7-day window
• Per-state copy: NSW gets a "pink slip required" line, VIC gets "RWC on transfer only", QLD gets "Safety Certificate on sale" etc., turns the reminder into a service-booking trigger rather than a passive nudge

Step 4: What customers see

The email arrives from your workshop's configured From address with reply-to set to your workshop email. The SMS lands in 90 minutes for 95% of recipients. Both link to your public booking page (/book/[your-slug]) when configured, otherwise show your workshop phone number.

Replies of "BOOK" land in your booking inbox.

Editing a rego date: what happens to the throttle?

When you edit a rego date on a vehicle (correcting a typo, updating after renewal), the system clears the reminder throttle automatically. The next cron run reconsiders the vehicle against the new window. No 7-day stuck period.

Troubleshooting

• "No rego date on vehicle": open the vehicle, set the date via the banner form
• "Customer didn't receive SMS": confirm the contact has a valid AU phone number (04xx xxx xxx or +614xx xxx xxx format). Without Twilio configured, the cron logs the attempt but doesn't send.
• "Email bounced": check the email log under Settings, then Integrations for the bounce reason. Most common: typo'd email or domain DNS issues.
• "Reminder fired but customer says they didn't see it": gentle nudge: most customers don't open email reminders; the SMS does the real work.