Timely: find and export the clients who haven't been in

Timely is the most common booking system in Australian skin, laser and beauty clinics, and it has a report built for exactly this job. It's called Customers absent since, and it lists everyone who hasn't rebooked or doesn't have an upcoming appointment after a date you pick, with their last booking date and how many days it's been. Most owners have never opened it.

Every step below is quoted from Timely's help centre, with the article linked, as it read on 5 August 2026. The report and export articles carry the banner "This article is for: Build / Elevate / Innovate", so they apply on every plan.

The report: Customers absent since

1. "Click the reports tab in the main menu." (How to view and download reports)
2. Choose Customers absent since from the dropdown. It's listed under client reports alongside Client overview, Client retention and Customers by service (Introduction: Client reports).
3. Pick your date. Timely's own note: "only a single date can be chosen." The report finds "which of your customers have not rebooked or do not have any upcoming appointments since a specific date" (How to use the customers absent since report).
4. "To see your selections, click view report."
5. What you'll see, in Timely's words: "the client's name and contact details as well as their last booking date", plus "the days absent is the number of days between the most recent booking and the current local date, the last service that was booked, and the status of the most recent booking, whether it was confirmed, pencilled in, no show or cancelled." Optional total spend. Grouped "by the last staff member seen by the client."
6. Export: "click the Excel, Word, PDF, or CSV buttons." Timely recommends CSV for spreadsheets (How to print or export a report).

The single-date limit means you get "everyone absent since 1 March", not "everyone absent between 3 and 24 months". Do the top cut in the spreadsheet: sort by days absent and drop anyone under 90 days. For the bottom cut, pick a date 24 months back when you run the report.

Watch the status column. A last booking that was a no-show or cancellation isn't a last visit. The message you send should reference the last time they actually came in, so filter those rows out or treat them as no-show follow-ups instead.

What's in the export, and what isn't

The help page says "contact details", not "mobile number". In practice the CSV carries the client's contact fields, but the docs don't name the column, so open the file and confirm the mobile is there before you plan a campaign around it. Last booking date and days absent are both there by Timely's description.

If you want more columns, the Client overview report lets you "click edit columns", pick what you want, add filters on some columns, then "save the URL, bookmark the page, or export the report" (Client overview report). Timely describes it as good for "identify client who have been absence and for how long, filtering target groups for marketing or exporting your client list." The article doesn't list the column names, so which fields you can add isn't quoted here.

Two admin notes from the docs. Report settings that decide which appointment statuses count "are only accessible to account owners" and changes "take roughly 24 hours to be reflected." And client reports can be restricted per staff member, so if you can't see the report, it's a permission, not a plan.

The catch: Timely's SMS campaigns can't use this list

Timely has an SMS campaigns feature (Messages → SMS campaigns → New SMS campaign) on the Elevate and Innovate plans. It's tempting to think you can run the absent-since report and send to it. Timely's own words say no: "it is not currently possible to filter an SMS campaign specifically for clients who haven't visited within a set period of time. While you can target clients who had appointments within a selected date range and have no future bookings, this does not confirm they haven't had other appointments outside that date range" (How to send SMS campaign marketing). The FAQ repeats it: "No, SMS campaigns cannot currently target clients based on a set period since their last visit" (SMS campaign FAQs).

The campaign filters that do exist: appointments within a date range, booked at a location, booked with a staff member, booked a select service, and a client filter called "Needs rebooking" (the renamed "No future bookings"). No saved segments. Campaigns can't be edited or stopped once sending, and "Personalising it with your client's name or adding emojis is not supported." Campaign texts aren't in your monthly SMS allowance and you're "charged immediately when you start sending"; the per-message rate shows in the app before you send and isn't published in the docs.

So the honest workflow on Timely is: report for the list, then either hand-pick recipients in a campaign, or send from a separate SMS tool or a person's phone. The DIY vs done-for-you page covers the trade.

Consent and opt-out in Timely

Two things worth knowing before you send anything, because they affect the rules.

Timely opts clients in by default. Its consent article, written for GDPR: "Customers will have been opted-in to receive those messages by default" (GDPR consent article). That's a default, not consent. Under the Spam Act "it's up to you to prove that you have a person's consent" (ACMA), and for a clinic the Privacy Act's rules on health information sit on top. A recall about the treatment they had with you is on solid ground; a promotional blast to the whole absent-since list isn't just because the tick box was on.

Opt-out works. "A 'Reply STOP to opt out' message is automatically added" to campaigns, and "if a client replies 'STOP' to one of your bulk SMS messages, their SMS marketing preferences will be automatically updated" (client SMS settings). Timely also notes its Australian messages go out "from a standard Australian mobile number, not a business name", which is why replies reach you and why the ACMA's sender-ID register rules don't apply to it (ACMA SMS rules FAQ). Nowhere in the fetched Timely docs is the Australian Spam Act mentioned by name.

What to do with the list

Sort by days absent, take the 50 most recent, and send those first. That's where consent is easiest to imply and the response is highest. The message names the person they saw (the report already groups by staff member, which is handy), references the last service in plain words, asks one question, and carries a way to stop. Six templates with timing, and what to text a client who hasn't been in.

Then have someone answer the replies the same hour. The report was two clicks. The bookings are in the replies.