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 your organisation would prefer that SupportAbility develop a custom integration for you, this custom development project is comprised of multiple phases.
Custom Integration Phases
The custom finance integration process involves several key phases:
- Phase 1: Analysis and Planning (Scoping), which involves:
- Initial meetings to discuss and understand requirements, including required team members from SupportAbility
- Development of a specification template by SupportAbility
- Additional planning meetings as needed
- Iterative revisions of the specification to align with your requirements and SupportAbility recommendations
- Finalisation of the technical specification/Scope of Works.
- Hours estimate:
- Technical Specification Estimate - 4 hours
- Initial Planning Meeting - 2 hours
- Estimated Planning Meetings - Minimum of 1-2 additional meetings generally required.
- Phase 2: Custom Integration Development, which involves:
- Development of the required custom integration exports as per the technical specification
- Internal testing and quality assurance
- Hours estimate:
- Between 10 and 30 hours, depending on your organisation's requirements.
- Phase 3: Custom Integration Deployment and Review, which involves:
- Deployment of the custom finance integration exports into your production environment
- Provision of a testing environment, including the custom finance integration exports and your organisation’s data, to test this integration
- Collection of feedback for necessary refinements based on the approved specification
- Final review and acceptance
- Phase 4: Ongoing Support and Further Development, which involves:
- Ongoing maintenance and support in line with the technical specification
- Any further revisions will need to be scoped and a new agreement entered into.
The pace at which these phases occur is highly dependent on your organisation, your integration partner, and the number of meetings and revisions to the required specifications.
Another key factor is SupportAbility's development roadmap. At present (May 2025), due to our development commitments, the minimum expected timeframe to develop a custom integration following the estimated sign-off is approximately between 8 and 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 to commence the project. 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.