NDIS provider bookkeeping

It depends on who manages the funding for each support in a participant's plan. Under section 45A of the NDIS Act, a claim for payment is made by whoever manages that funding, except where the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) manages it. Then the provider that delivers the support makes the claim.

So one provider can be paid by three routes in the same month, and each route leaves a different trail in the books.

In your accounting software, the NDIA, each plan manager and each self-managed participant you bill can be set up as a separate customer. What each one owes your business then shows on its own, rather than inside one total.

A participant's funding arrangement can change. Keeping each payer apart in the books shows which one each open invoice was sent to.

Yes. At the start, we agree how participants appear in your books, so each invoice and payment request carries the participant it's for, whoever pays it. Coding each invoice this way lets the books show income by participant, by funding route and by the kind of support you deliver.

Kinds of support can be kept apart with separate income accounts or with the tracking your software offers. Subcontractor invoices can be tracked the same way, so the cost of delivering a kind of support sits beside the income it brings in. If you run more than one site or team, the same tracking can split income between them.

The tracking depends on consistent billing. Invoices and requests need to name the participant and the support the same way each time. When one doesn't, we check with you before recording it.

Each payment request and invoice stays open in your books until it's paid or you decide what happens to it. That's what makes a shortfall visible, rather than lost inside a deposit that looks about right.

• Paid short: the amount that arrived is matched to the request or invoice, and the difference stays open against it, with its reference, on your unpaid list.
• Not paid: the request or invoice stays on the unpaid list and shows its age, so it doesn't drop out of sight as months pass.
• Paid twice, or paid too much: the extra is flagged for you, because it may need to go back to whoever paid it.
• Paid by an unexpected payer, such as a participant paying an invoice you sent to a plan manager: we check with you before it's matched.

Finding out why a claim was rejected or reduced sits with you and whoever manages the funding. Once you know, you decide what happens next: correct and resend the request, bill the right payer, or stop pursuing the difference.

We then record your decision. That might mean a credit note against the original invoice or a corrected invoice. How and when it's recorded is for your accountant to specify, and we follow those instructions.

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (the NDIS Commission) explains that before a provider becomes registered, it's assessed against the NDIS Practice Standards in an independent quality audit carried out by an approved quality auditor. As a general rule, a verification audit is for low risk, low complexity supports, and a certification audit for higher risk ones. Depending on the supports, an audit can include a review of documents and information about the business.

An audit looks at how a provider meets the Practice Standards, which covers far more than its books. Bookkeeping doesn't prepare a provider for an audit or show that it meets the Standards, and we don't advise on them.

Where the books come in is cost. The NDIS Commission says there is no cost to register with it, but the provider pays the approved quality auditor, and the Commission doesn't set what auditors charge. Auditors' invoices can be recorded so you can see what audits have cost from one registration period to the next.

Your books stay in your own accounting software, with each month reconciled. If anyone asks to see your financial records, you can open the file and show them.