Debtors in SupportAbility
Before transitioning to SupportAbility and the NDIS, many providers create a Client record in their financial system to track accounts receivable.
However, under the NDIS, there are multiple options for how Clients may choose to manage their Funds: all or part of their funding may be NDIA-managed, Self-managed or Plan Managed, or a combination of all three.
Depending on how the Client is choosing to manage their Funds, this will determine which debtors will be responsible for paying the Invoices associated with the NDIS Services they receive.
Therefore, it is important that the debtors your organisation will be generating Invoices for are available in your organisation's Finance system, as well as in SupportAbility.
Debtor Contact records must be created and configured in SupportAbility to ensure that when the Client's NDIS Direct Funding record is created, the Financial Plan Manager can be set accordingly to the party responsible for paying the Invoices for the NDIS Support Allocations in the Activities the Client participates in.
Audience: Finance Team, and anyone tasked with creating or updating NDIS Direct Client Funding records
Summary
The following list summarises the content within this article. Click on the links below to take you to the relevant sections:
- Debtors in SupportAbility
- Debtor options
- Contact
- Client
- Client Contact
- Debtor ID
- Specialised Debtor considerations for specific finance systems
Debtors in SupportAbility
SupportAbility defines the debtor as the party responsible for paying the Invoice on behalf of the Client for the Service received.
Clients can potentially have multiple debtors associated with their NDIS funding package, which is why SupportAbility separates the two. Debtors in SupportAbility are designed to indicate the party responsible for paying an Invoice, regardless of the Client receiving services.
Why isn't the Client used as the debtor in SupportAbility?
SupportAbility includes various reports designed to capture Client NDIS Funding Utilisation & Expenditure. Client Funding Statements can be used to track and manage expenditure on a Client-by-Client basis (printable and/or exportable from the Print menu in the Client record), each Client Funding record contains a Utilisation tab to assist in tracking expenditure against their Budget and the NDIS Budget Utilisation Report (Reports menu) can be used to review expenditure holistically.
The reports mentioned above, along with using strategic tools such as Job Codes, allow organisations to analyse revenue from different angles for business intelligence, including by Client.
Debtor options
There are three debtor options to choose from when configuring the 'Financial Plan Manager' in the Client's NDIS Direct Funding:
Contact
Where a third-party Contact is set as the Financial Plan Manager (FPM) for a Client's NDIS Funding i.e. the NDIA or another external Plan Manager:
Invoices will be generated for this Contact based on how the Contact record has been configured:
Noting that Invoices for the NDIA are included in the NDIS Bulk Payment Request export for submission in the myplace provider portal, whereas Invoices for Plan Managers are imported into your organisation's finance system to manage the Accounts Receivable process.
Client
Where a Client is managing their own NDIS Funds or part of their NDIS Funding, they may be selected as the Financial Plan Manager for the applicable NDIS Supports:
When Invoices are generated for these NDIS Supports, they will be directed to the Client accordingly:
Client Contact
Where the Billing Contact has been set to anyone other than the Client in the Client:Contacts tab:
And when the Client has been configured as the Financial Plan Manager for all or part of the NDIS Funding e.g. Transport only:
Invoices for these NDIS Supports are directed to this Individual rather than to the Client based on the Personal Contact configured as the Client's Billing Contact:
Debtor ID
Many finance systems require a unique ID to identify each debtor. SupportAbility contains a 'Debtor ID' field on all Client, Client Contact and Contact records e.g:
To help ensure that the Invoices that SupportAbility generates and exports for those Debtors, end up attached to the same corresponding Debtors in the finance system.
This field is for providers who use a Finance system, such as MYOB, Tencia, SAP B1 and Sage Evolution, which require SupportAbility to include the Debtor ID (sometimes called a ‘Card ID’) in the Invoice Batch export. This is required in order for Invoices to be attached to their respective Debtor record in the Finance system.
When an organisation uses one of these Finance systems, the Card ID or unique identifier must be entered into this field, for any entities set as the Financial Plan Manager and that Invoices will be issued to i.e. the Client, Client Contact (nominee), and/or Contact (Plan Managers) records.
In addition, if your organisation wishes to import Invoices generated for the NDIA for Clients who have NDIA-managed Funding into your Finance system, the NDIA will need to be created in your organisation's finance system as a debtor. Please see the
Once this information has been entered, there is a report which may be helpful called the 'Export Debtor Data Report' in the Client Reports section of the Finance menu:
To generate this report, Staff Members require the 'View Financial Information' Staff Account Privileges, along with access to all Client records via the 'Team Leader for ALL Services' privilege or the 'Edit ALL Client records' privilege.
This report can be used to download a list of all Client, Client Contacts and Contact records that are set to be used as a Financial Plan Manager, or have been used as a Financial Plan Manager historically.
General details such as Name, Address, and Contact Details are included in this export, as well as the SupportAbility ID of each record, and the Debtor ID which has been entered. If the Debtor ID is empty in this export, then this has not been entered correctly. However, it is important to keep in mind that the Debtor ID is only required for any entities your organisation is generating Invoices for.
Specialised Debtor considerations for specific finance systems
We recommend reviewing the Knowledge Base article associated with your specific finance system to understand any specific configuration requirements it may have around Debtor Management. These system-specific Finance Integration articles are listed below for reference purposes.