There is a specific hour when event planning becomes data entry. It is around 11pm, after the client calls are done, when you sit with your phone and do the rounds. Who has replied. Who needs their access pass sent. Which names from the afternoon's voice note still need to enter the spreadsheet. Which client's payment cleared, meaning which event can actually start moving.
None of this work needs your taste, your judgement or your relationships. It needs your thumbs. And every hour of it is an hour subtracted from the parts of the job you are actually hired for.
One Lagos agency running eight to twelve events a month was, until recently, operating entirely on WhatsApp, Excel and paper guest lists. No consolidated view of anything. Every status update assembled by hand. If that sentence feels like looking in a mirror, keep reading.
What an automation actually is
Forget the intimidating word. An automation is a sentence you write once, that the software then obeys forever. On Comtev, you build them on the three things that eat your evenings: guests, guest lists and clients.
Rules you can set up in your first week:
When a guest replies yes, send their e-access. The confirmation and the pass arrive in the same conversation, seconds apart. Nobody waits for you to notice their reply. Multiply this by four hundred guests and you have deleted an entire category of evening.
For every guest in this list who says yes, move them to the confirmed list. Your working list stays clean, your confirmed list stays true, and the number you quote the caterer is the number at the door. The migration happens continuously, not in a panicked batch the night before.
When the client pays their invoice, create the guest list. This one is quietly profound. It encodes a business rule into the machinery: work begins when money lands. No more starting guest collection on trust and chasing the deposit afterwards. The payment itself flips the switch.
Why plain language matters
You do not need to be technical. The rules read the way you would say them to an assistant: when this happens, do that. If you can send a voice note of instructions, you can build an automation. The difference is that this assistant does not fall sick on event day, does not need transport money, and executes the instruction at 3am with the same enthusiasm as at 3pm.
The compounding effect
One rule saves minutes. A set of rules changes what your business can carry.
Think about what actually limits how many events you can run at once. It is not creativity. It is the administrative load per event: the chasing, sending, moving and reconciling. Every rule you write lowers that load a little, and the ceiling lifts with it. The same team quietly carries more events, not by working longer but by no longer doing work a machine was happy to take.
And there is a quality effect nobody expects. Automated steps do not forget. The guest who confirmed at 2am on a public holiday still gets their pass at 2am on the public holiday. Your service becomes eerily consistent, and consistency is what clients describe as professionalism when they recommend you.
Start with one rule
Do not try to automate your whole operation this week. Pick the single task you resent most. For most planners it is sending access passes to confirmed guests, so start there: when a guest says yes, send their e-access. Run one event with it. Notice what 11pm feels like.
Then add the next rule. The admin will not miss you, and honestly, you will not miss it either.
FAQs
What can I build automations on?
Guests, guest lists and clients. Examples: send e-access when a guest replies yes, move guests who confirm into another list, create a guest list when a client pays an invoice.
Do I need technical skills to build one?
No. Rules are written in plain language, the way you would brief an assistant: when this happens, do that.
Can automations touch my money?
Automations act on your guests, lists and clients. Invoices are raised by you at prices you set; an automation can react to a client's payment, for example by creating the guest list for the event that payment sets in motion.
What does this cost?
Comtev is free to run, including building automations. You pay wholesale for the messages you send and the guest-collection seats you use, and you charge your client your own price for the work.