Certificate expiry tracking with 90, 60 and 30-day alerts
Certly is certificate expiry tracking software for food plant QA teams: it holds the expiry date on every supplier certificate and flags it at 90, 60 and 30 days before that date. Those thresholds are yours to change, per certificate type or as a plant-wide default, from a settings screen rather than a support ticket.
The expiry date is known in advance, the problem is who notices
Supplier certificate expiry dates are not surprises. The date is printed on the document the day it arrives, which means the lapse on an approved supplier list is usually knowable long before it happens.
What actually fails is the noticing. In most mid-market plants the expiry dates sit in a spreadsheet column that only tells you something if someone sorts it, filters it and reads it on a week when they have time. That week is rarely the week before an unannounced audit.
Where the spreadsheet method breaks
- It is pull, not push. The file never tells you anything. You have to go and ask it, and the asking is the task that slips when a line goes down or a customer complaint lands.
- One reminder is not enough lead time. A reminder the week a certificate lapses is a reminder that you are already exposed. A supplier renewing an audit certificate may need to book a certification body, close out findings and wait for the report, and none of that fits into a few days.
- Different documents need different notice. A certificate of analysis on a delivered batch and an annual third party audit certificate do not need the same warning period, but a single spreadsheet usually gets a single rule.
- The status is typed, not derived. In a tracker, "current" is a word someone wrote in a cell. It stays saying current after the date has passed, because a cell does not know what day it is.
Certly is built to invert that. The expiry date goes in once, and the status you read is worked out from that date and your thresholds every time the screen loads, rather than from a column someone remembered to update.
How expiry tracking works in Certly
- Record the expiry date against the certificate
Every certificate stored in Certly is tied to a supplier and to one of that supplier's required certificate types, such as an allergen declaration, a certificate of analysis or a third party audit certificate, and carries its expiry date. That single date is what all the tracking is computed from.
- The date is checked as it goes in
The supplier and certificate forms are validated on the server as well as in the browser: supplier name, a real email format for the contact, a certificate type and an expiry date that is an actual date. Anything missing or malformed comes back as a field-level error shown inline, so a blank or nonsense expiry date does not get saved and silently drop out of tracking.
- Set your thresholds on the alert settings screen
The alert settings screen lists each certificate type with its current days-before-expiry thresholds, starting at 90, 60 and 30. You can add a threshold, edit one, remove one, or set a plant-wide default that applies to types you have not configured individually. Changes are saved and confirmed on the screen, so you can see what the plant is actually running on.
- Status is computed from the date on every read
Each time the dashboard or a supplier page loads, Certly compares today's date against every stored expiry date and against your thresholds for that certificate type, and derives the status from the result: current, expiring soon, expired or missing. There is no status field for anyone to forget to update, and a document that passed its date yesterday does not read current today.
- Tune the thresholds as you learn your suppliers
If a certificate type consistently takes longer to renew than 90 days of notice allows, raise its threshold. If a routine document does not need three warnings, remove one. The thresholds are held per certificate type, so tightening one does not add noise to the others.
What each of the three default thresholds is for
| Threshold | What it gives you | The decision in front of you |
|---|---|---|
| 90 days | The first notice, while renewal is still routine for the supplier | Confirm you have the right contact at the supplier and that renewal is booked |
| 60 days | A checkpoint when the renewal should be under way | Escalate to a named person if nothing has moved, and note it on the supplier record |
| 30 days | The last comfortable window before the document on file is out of date | Decide how you will handle the supplier if the certificate lapses, before it does |
What this changes in the QA week
You stop auditing your own spreadsheet
The expiring-soon position is derived from stored dates whenever you look, so the work moves from finding out what is expiring to acting on it. Sorting a file by date stops being a recurring job that has to earn a slot in your week.
Lead time matched to the document, not to one blanket rule
Thresholds are configurable per certificate type, so a document that takes a supplier three months to renew can get more notice than one that takes a week, without burying you in early warnings for everything else.
Three warnings instead of one deadline
Alerts at 90, 60 and 30 days give you an escalation ladder rather than a single cliff edge. By the time a certificate is close to lapsing you have already asked twice, and you know it.
The plant's rules are written down, not in someone's head
Thresholds are stored against your plant and shown on the settings screen, and every supplier and certificate query is scoped to that plant. Anyone covering the role can see what notice period the plant works to for each certificate type.
The status on screen cannot drift away from the date
Because status is computed on read rather than stored as a label, a certificate whose expiry date has passed reads expired the next time anyone opens the screen, without a person or a maintenance task in between.
What Certly does and does not do here
Certly tracks and reminds on certificate expiry. It does not verify certificate authenticity and it does not guarantee regulatory compliance, and that two-sentence statement sits beside the status badges on the dashboard and near the top of the PDF you hand an auditor, rather than being buried in terms.
The practical line is this: Certly tells you that the audit certificate on file for a supplier expires in 58 days and that you have been told twice. Judging whether that certificate is the right one, issued by the right body, to the right scope, is your call and stays your call.
How the timing works today, plainly
The expiry calculation is live: open the dashboard or a supplier page and the statuses you see are worked out from the stored dates at that moment. The daily sweep that writes the day's check is triggered by the first dashboard view of the day, and a server-side scheduler that runs it with nobody signed in is still on the build list rather than in place. We would rather say that here than let you discover it after a fortnight of annual leave. Sign-in, when you do want to look, is email and password.
Where expiry tracking sits in the rest of the product
The alert is the trigger, not the whole job. Once a certificate crosses a threshold it needs somewhere to resolve to and someone to ask: the audit-ready dashboard carries the four statuses per supplier on one screen, the automated chase sequences put the request in front of the supplier contact with a one-click upload link, and the supplier uploads the document through a single-use link with no account to create. Expiry tracking is the part that makes sure nothing reaches the missing column quietly.
Certly is on a waitlist today
We are building Certly for single-site mid-market food plants, and it is not generally available yet. If chasing supplier certificates is currently a spreadsheet and a calendar reminder, join the waitlist and tell us which certificate types eat the most of your week. We would rather hear that now than guess.
Questions
How do you track supplier certificate expiry dates in Certly?
Each certificate is stored with its expiry date against the supplier and the certificate type it belongs to. Whenever the dashboard or a supplier page is read, Certly compares that date to today and to your configured thresholds, by default 90, 60 and 30 days before expiry, and derives the status from the result.
Can I change the 90, 60 and 30-day defaults?
Yes. The alert settings screen lists each certificate type with its current days-before-expiry thresholds and lets you add, edit or remove a threshold, or set a plant-wide default for types you have not configured individually. Changes are saved with a confirmation on the screen.
Can different certificate types have different warning periods?
That is the point of the per-type configuration. An annual audit certificate can carry longer notice than a routine document, because the thresholds are held per certificate type rather than as one global rule.
What happens once a certificate has already passed its expiry date?
The thresholds count days before expiry, so once the date has passed the certificate is no longer in the expiring-soon window. It is computed as expired, and the dashboard shows status per supplier as current, expiring soon, expired or missing, so a lapsed document is visible rather than silent.
Does the calculation run on a schedule without anyone signing in?
Not in the current build. Status is computed every time the data is read, so the position is correct whenever you open the app, and the daily check is triggered by the first dashboard view of the day. A server-side scheduler that runs with nobody signed in is on the build list, not shipped, and we will say so until it is.
Does Certly check that a certificate is genuine?
No. Certly is a certificate tracking and reminder system. It tracks expiry dates and reminds you and your suppliers about them. It does not verify certificate authenticity and does not guarantee regulatory compliance, and it says so on the dashboard and on the exported PDF.
What happens to the old document when a supplier sends a renewal?
The version it replaced is kept along with its issue and expiry dates, so an auditor asking which declaration was valid on a date in the past can be answered. Nothing is deleted by a renewal.
Is Certly available to buy today?
Not yet. Certly is at waitlist stage and is being built for single-site mid-market food plants. Joining the waitlist is how you hear when access opens and how you influence which certificate types and thresholds we handle first.