NDIS Plan Managed Client Funding Utilisation

This article provides detailed information relating to the various Utilisation information available and how this may be analysed

Tracking Utilisation of NDIS Plan Managed Client Funding is the process of analysing the Client's Expenditure (both Planned and Used), against the Budgets for NDIS Supports over the duration of the Funding Period.  

Analysing Budget Utilisation allows providers to better understand a Client's use of their NDIS Supports and associated spending patterns. This may help to identify trends as well as any issues that may arise, which could potentially result in a Client exhausting their Support Budgets before the end of the Funding Period. 

NDIS Plan Managed Client Funding Budgets should ideally be configured to align with the Standard Service Booking and/or Service Agreements your organisation has in place for each Client, therefore Utilisation will be tracked based on how these Budgets have been defined. 

Audience: Finance Team 

Summary

The following list summarises the content within this article. Click on the links below to take you to the relevant sections:

Configuring Client Funding Under/Over Spend Warning Thresholds

Several of the Budget Utilisation tools in SupportAbility provide indications that the Client is underspending or overspending against a given Budget or Expenditure target.  

In cases such as this, it is important to highlight when a significant variance from the Support Budget or Expenditure target exists. Whereas minor deviations may be regarded as normal and not flagged.  

To facilitate this, SupportAbility provides Client Funding Underspend and Overspend Warning Threshold settings, that may be configured from the default to your organisations desired warning tolerance levels.

Please refer to the 'Client Funding Over/Under Spend Warning Thresholds' section of the Steps to set up and use the Plan Management functionality article for details on how to configure these thresholds.

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Utilisation

The Utilisation tab in the NDIS Plan Managed Client Funding record provides a number of different tools and ways to analyse Utilisation information, each of which are discussed in detail below.
To access the Utilisation information for a given Client, first navigate to their relevant NDIS Plan Managed Client Funding record and select the Utilisation tab:

This tab contains a number of different Budget Utilisation tools, and is comprised of four key sections: 
  • Overall Utilisation Summary
  • Utilisation Summary To Date
  • Budget Utilisation

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Overall Funds Utilisation Summary

Purpose: A holistic summary of the NDIS Plan Managed Client Funding Utilisation. It summarises all existing Expenditure against the Total Budget.

Information Displayed:

  1. Total Budget - the Total Budget of the NDIS Plan Managed Client Funding represented in dollars
    Calculation: the collective sum of all Flexible and Support Item Funds Budgets. 
  2. Utilisation - the total value of NDIS Supports in Signed Off External Invoices, represented in dollars
  3. Remaining - the remaining value of the Total Budget once the value of NDIS Supports in Signed Off External Invoices has been subtracted, represented in dollars.

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Utilisation Summary To Date

Purpose: A holistic summary of the NDIS Plan Managed Client Funding Utilisation from the perspective of how far into the funding period the Client is, and thus, the expected value of invoices received for delivered supports by this point in time, and what balance should remain.  

How it works: It is important to note that this form of analysis relies on the base assumption that the Client intends to spend the funding at a consistent rate throughout the funding period in order to detect over or under-spending patterns as early as possible. 

For example, let's assume that today, when looking at this information, the Client is 50% of the way through their funding period.  This utilisation tool then makes the assumption that the Client should have spent approximately 50% of their Managed Funds and therefore sets the Target Expenditure Value (the expected value of all Supports in Signed Off External Invoices for services delivered on or before today) to be 50% of the value of the Total Budget for this Client Funding Funds. 

The Actual Expenditure value is then compared against the Target Expenditure value to determine how much the Client's actual expenditure deviates from the target value to help identify over or under-spending trends.

Information Displayed:

  1. Funding Period - The Start Date and End Date of the Client Funding record that defines the Funding Period
  2. Current Date - Today's date.
  3. Days into Funding Period - How far into the funding period the Current Date is, represented in days and a percentage of the funding period
    1. Days into Funding Period
      Calculation: If the Current Date is within the funding period, this is calculated as the number of whole days between the Client Funding Start Date and the Current Date.  If the Current Date is after the Client Funding End Date, this is calculated as the number of whole days in the funding period.
    2. % into Funding Period
      Calculation: (Days into Funding Period (#3a) / Total Days in the Funding Period) x 100
  4. Target Expenditure - The expected value of all Supports in Signed Off External Invoices for services delivered on or before today.  Calculated as a pro-rata portion of the Total Funds Budget based on how far into the Funding Period the Current Date is.
    Calculation: Total Funds Budget for the NDIS Plan Managed Client Funding (Overall Funds Utilisation Summary: #1) x Days into Funding Period % (#3a)
  5. Actual Expenditure - The actual value of all Supports in Signed Off External Invoices for services delivered on or before today. 
  6. Variance from Target - The difference between the Target Expenditure value and the Actual Expenditure value represented as both dollars and as a percentage of the Target Expenditure value.
    1. Variance from Target $
      Calculation: Target Expenditure value (#4) -  Actual Expenditure value (#5) 
    2. Variance from Target %
      Calculation: (Variance from Target $ (#6a) / Target Expenditure value (#4)) x 100 

Threshold Warnings:

  • Underspend: If the Variance from Target % (#6b) is less than the Underspend Warning % threshold configured in System Preferences, these variance value (#6a & #6b) will be displayed as an amber warning.
  • Overspend: If the Variance from Target % (#6) is greater than the Overspend Warning % threshold configured in System Preferences, these Variance values (#6a & #6b) will be displayed as an red warning.

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Budget Utilisation - Overall Utilisation

Purpose: A utilisation summary which displays each defined Funds Budget, its associated Expenditure, as well as the portion of the Budget that remains unutilised.

Information Displayed:

  1. Support - The Flexible or Support Item Funds Budget defined in the Client Funding Details tab.  Budgets are grouped by NDIS Support Category.
  2. Budget - The Total Value of the Flexible or Support Item Funds Budgets.
  3. Expenditure - The value of NDIS Supports included in Signed Off External Invoices, attributed to the Flexible or Support Item Funds Budget 
    1. Calculation for Support Item Funds Budgets: The total value of this specific Support, included in Signed Off External Invoices
    2. Calculation for Flexible FundsBudgets: The total value of Supports included in Signed Off External Invoices, that belong to the same Support Category as the Flexible Funds Budget.  Excludes any Supports that have their own Support Item Funds Budget defined.
  4. Remaining - the remaining value of the Flexible or Support Item Funds Budget once the value of delivered and scheduled services has been subtracted  
    Calculation: Budget (#2) + Expenditure (#3)

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Budget Utilisation - Utilisation To Date

Purpose: Displays each defined Funds Budget and determines the portion of each Funds Budget that is expected to have been delivered as Supports by this point in time, and what balance should remain.  

It is important to note that this form of funding analysis relies on the base assumption that the Client intends to consume and utilise each budget at a consistent rate throughout the funding period.  This is required to provide early detection of Client expenditure patterns that may indicate a trend towards overspending or underspending. 

For example, let's assume that today, when looking at this tool, the Client is 50% of the way through their funding period.  This utilisation tool assumes that the Client should have spent approximately 50% of each Funds Budget and therefore sets the Target Expenditure Value (the expected value of Supports in Signed Off External Invoices for services delivered on or before today) to be 50% of the value of the associated Budget. 

The Actual value of Supports delivered for this Funds Budget by this time, is then compared again the Target Expenditure value, to determine how much the Client's actual expenditure deviates from the target value to help identify overspending or underspending issues.

Information Displayed:

  1. Support - The Flexible or Support Item Funds Budget defined in the Client Funding Details tab.  Budgets are grouped by NDIS Support Category.
  2. Budget - The Total Value of the Flexible or Support Item Funds Budget.
  3. Target Expenditure - The expected value of Supports included in Signed Off External Invoices for services delivered on or before today.  Calculated as a pro-rata portion of the Budget (#2)value based on how many days into the funding period the Current Date is.
    Calculation: Budget value x Days into Funding Period % (see Utilisation Summary To Date #3)
  4. Actual Expenditure - The actual value of Supports included in Signed Off External Invoices for services delivered on or before today. 
    1. Calculation for Support Item Funds Budgets: The total value of this specific Support Item included in Signed Off External Invoices for services delivered on or before today
    2. Calculation for Flexible Funds Budgets: The total value of Supports included in Signed Off External Invoices, that belong to the same Support Category as the Flexible Funds Budget.  Only includes Supports that do not have a separate Support Item Funds Budget defined.  Only includes Supports for services delivered on or before today.
  5. Variance $ - The difference in dollars between the Target Expenditure value and the Actual Expenditure value. 
    Calculation: Target Allocated value (#3) -  Actual Allocated value (#4)
  6. Variance % - The difference in dollars between the Target Expenditure value and the Actual Expenditure value represented as a percentage the Target Expenditure value.
    Calculation: (Variance $ (#5) / Target Expenditure value (#3)) x 100

Threshold Warnings:

  • Underspend: If the Variance from Target % (#6) is less than the Underspend Warning % threshold configured in System Preferences, this Variance values (#5 & #6) will be displayed as an amber warning.
  • Overspend: If the Variance from Target % (#6) is greater than the Overspend Warning % threshold configured in System Preferences, this Variance values (#5 & #6) will be displayed as an red warning.

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