Finance & NDIS | Payroll Preparation

The purpose of this stage of your implementation is to step your organisation through the preparation required to pilot Staff Time Sheets and the Payroll process. 

Audience: 

• Finance Team,
• Operations Management,
• General Managers/Department Head for each of the Services your organisation delivers, and
• Team Leaders.

Prerequisites

Before getting underway, we recommend the following has been completed: 

• the Foundations phase of your organisation's implementation
• Finance & NDIS | Planning- where your organisation's business needs and required outputs for Payroll Integration have been determined in order to get the most efficiencies and value from SupportAbility
• The Payroll Integration Strategy article has been reviewed for an understanding of the limitations and suitability of this functionality 

What are the steps involved?

The information outlined below is designed to assist by providing a holistic overview. Each of these steps requires thorough consideration regarding the process, including which Staff should be involved ahead of determining your organisation's plan to pilot these processes. 

• Configuration must be completed. 
  • This is usually completed by an organisation's Authorised Representative/s in conjunction with Finance. 
• Activities must be created with Staff shifts added and/or customised where required to reflect the hours Staff work. 
  • The Staff responsible for adding Staff and/or customising shifts depends on how Activities are being managed for each type of Service your organisation delivers. 
• Staff Time Sheets may be completed by performing the Staff Time Sheet Sign Off from the Dashboard (if configured) or from within the Activity. 
  • This is an optional step and requires consideration if this is necessary for your organisation's Staff and if so, who e.g. casual and part-time Staff only. 
• Perform the Activity Sign Off approval. This will complete all Staff Time Sheets which have not had the Sign Off performed. 
  • The Activity Sign Off is important to ensure all of the required quality checks have been completed and that Staff Time Sheets are correct.
    • This is usually centralised to Team Leaders or Heads of Service. 
    • In some cases, this approval process is centralised to a single individual or team. Performing the Sign Off approves the Activity for invoicing and payroll (where applicable).  
• Generate Time Sheet Batches for import into your organisation's Payroll system. 
  • Time Sheet batches are usually completed by an organisation's Finance team. 

Pilot plan

We recommend considering who will be responsible for each of the steps as outlined above when formulating your pilot plan, to assist in determining who in your organisation should be involved. 

Scope

Next, it is important to establish the parameters of the pilot trial. Your organisation may choose to conduct the pilot with a single Staff member for a specific payroll period e.g. a fortnight. Alternatively, your organisation may wish to conduct a larger pilot with the Staff who facilitate a selected type of Service for a specific period e.g. Community Access Staff for a week. 

Either way, we recommend that the defined period aligns with your organisation's payroll cycle.

We suggest having a discussion internally to map out your pilot plan further and inform those who work with the Client/s you will be commencing with of your organisation's requirements and exceptions during this process. 

Activities

N.B. Activities are a requirement of the pilot process. If your organisation has not yet commenced the Activities phase of your implementation, those involved will benefit from familiarising themselves with the Activities Workflow video.  

This will help step them through creating an Activity, creating Staff shifts and also performing the Activity Sign Off which is required prior to generating Invoice Batches, Time Sheet Batches and NDIS Bulk Payment Requests.