Due Date Notifier
The Due Date Notifier is an automated feature that sends SMS reminders to customers a configurable number of days before their bill payment is due. It eliminates the need to manually chase customers and helps reduce late payments by giving customers advance notice to prepare.
How It Works
Once enabled, the system runs a check every day (typically at a scheduled time in the early morning). It finds every customer whose bill due date falls exactly the configured number of days from today, and dispatches an SMS reminder to each of them automatically. No manual action is required after the initial setup.
Configuration
Go to Settings → SMS Notifications → Due Date Notifier to configure the feature.
Enable or Disable
Use the Enable Due Date Notifier toggle to turn the feature on or off globally. When disabled, no reminders will be sent regardless of other settings.
Days Before Due Date
Set the Days Before Due Date field to the number of days in advance you want reminders sent. For example:
- A value of 3 means customers will receive a reminder SMS 3 days before their bill is due.
- A value of 1 sends the reminder on the day before the due date.
You can set only one value at a time. If you want to send reminders at multiple intervals (for example, both 5 days and 1 day before), consider supplementing with a manually scheduled SMS Broadcast Job.
Message Template
Write the reminder message in the Message Template field. Use template variables to personalise the message for each customer:
| Variable | Replaced with |
|---|---|
{customer_name} |
Customer's full name |
{amount_due} |
Outstanding bill amount |
{due_date} |
The customer's bill due date |
{package_name} |
Customer's active package name |
Example template:
Hi {customer_name}, this is a reminder that your payment of {amount_due} is due on {due_date}. Please pay on time to avoid service interruption. Thank you.
Saving Changes
After adjusting any settings, click Save to apply them. Changes take effect from the next daily run.
Daily Processing
The notifier runs automatically once per day as part of the system's scheduled task queue (cron). You do not need to trigger it manually. If you need to verify that the scheduler is running correctly, contact your server administrator and ask them to confirm the cron jobs are active.
Notes
- Only customers with a bill due date that matches the configured day offset will receive a message on any given day. Customers whose due dates fall on other days are unaffected.
- SMS credits are consumed for each message sent. Ensure your SMS balance is maintained to avoid missed reminders.
- The SMS gateway must be properly configured under Settings → SMS Gateway for this feature to work.