Custom Finance Integration
If your organisation does not use any of the finance packages SupportAbility currently integrates with, there are two options available for developing a custom integration to ensure invoice data can be exported from SupportAbility and imported into your organisation's finance system for distributing those invoices and managing the accounts receivable process.
This article provides more information about each of these options and the related considerations.
Audience: Authorised Customer Representatives, Finance Team
Summary
The following list summarises the content within this article. Click on the links below to take you to the relevant sections:
Custom Integration Options
SupportAbility provides several ‘out-of-the-box’ integrations for generic finance systems such as MYOB or Xero.
However, when an organisation uses a finance package that SupportAbility does not currently support or an enterprise-grade finance system, such as Microsoft Business Central, there are two options to consider:
- Your finance system integration partner develops a custom integration for your organisation using the existing Zed Axis export (originally designed for Quickbooks and Reckon) in SupportAbility, as this export contains all of the data available regarding invoices.
- SupportAbility develops a custom finance integration based on your organisation's billing and financial analytics requirements to ensure that the exported debtor and invoice data is compatible with your organisation's finance system.
Finance system integration partner
Recently, many providers have chosen the option of having their integration partner develop custom integration using this data.
This has resulted in getting the integration operational much faster based on their organisation’s needs.
The data mapping for the ‘out-of-the-box' Zed Axis export can be found in the Zed Axis Finance Integration article linked below for reference.
We recommend that you provide this to your integration partner so they can review and determine if this export will provide their developers with the data required to fill out invoices in your finance system based on your organisation's requirements.
SupportAbility
If you prefer SupportAbility to develop a custom integration, the first step in this process is a discovery session. From here, it can take 3 to 6 months to provide your organisation with the custom exports in your production environment to test.
The time this takes is highly dependent on the provider and the integration partner and the number of meetings and revisions to the required specifications.
It is important to note that at present (Jan 2025), due to our development commitments, the minimum expected timeframe to develop a custom integration following the estimated sign-off is approximately between 8-10 weeks.
Costs
The cost is also varied. Custom integration work, including meetings, documentation, development, and testing, is charged at $300 per hour, excluding GST (2024/25 rate).
Once a technical specification is finalised and agreed upon by all parties, SupportAbility can provide a fixed cost and time estimate for the development and testing work to be completed. However, we are not able to provide cost estimates for the discovery meetings and work required prior to specification sign-off as this process and the timelines associated with it are largely dependent on third parties.
As a guide, most custom finance integrations cost around $10,000 to $15,000, excluding GST.
Once the estimate is agreed to and before work commences, an upfront payment of $2,000 + GST is required. This payment will be deducted from the total balance upon project completion and will be due upon delivery of the custom exports.
Testing
It is important to note that SupportAbility does not create test data. However, this can be managed by providing a test environment, including your organisation’s data, to test this integration.
When testing, if issues arise within the scope of the documented specification and are reported within the four-week testing time frame, they will be addressed at no additional cost. However, if issues arise outside of the scope of the documented specification, a change request will require discovery, a new specification, sign-off, estimates, and testing.
Possible amendments required over time
It is important to note that custom integrations may require amendments from time to time to support changes in the Disability sector and introduced by the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
For example, if significant changes were introduced, such as Claim Types, Portions etc. and this data is required to be included in Invoices, changes would be required to all Invoice Batch exports in SupportAbility.
In such a case, this may require additional paid support time to ensure your organisation's custom export is updated to align with these new requirements, should you proceed with this.
To clarify, future amendments to custom integrations that are not customer-initiated are not common, and if this were to occur, we would provide ample warning of any required changes.
However, we wish to be transparent about this so that it can be considered when your organisation is deciding upon the best solution moving forward.