NDIS Direct Client Funding - Plan Review
We have been receiving consistent feedback that NDIS Service Providers are often not notified of a Client's new NDIS Plan until some weeks after it has been established. Providers have continued to deliver Services and link the expenditure to the funding associated with the original Plan. This has had the effect of:
- Inaccurate utilisation statistics for both the original and new NDIS Direct Client Funding record.
- Inaccurate NDIS Statements for both the original and new NDIS Direct Client Funding record.
- Making it impossible to set the end date for the original NDIS Direct Client Funding record to the end date of the original Plan because it is linked to Signed Off Activities after this date.
A feature has been developed available from the upgrade to SupportAbility v6.11 to address this. When a provider becomes aware that a participant's NDIS Plan has been reviewed, a 'Plan Review' may be added from the NDIS Direct Client Funding record to reflect this. It is important to note that an active NDIS Funding record is required, in order to utilise this feature. This article steps through what adding a Plan Review does, how to add a Plan Review of the NDIS Direct Client Funding record in SupportAbility, as well as considerations once this has been completed.
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:
- When is adding a Plan Review required?
- What does adding a Plan Review do?
- How to add a Plan Review
- New funding record
- NDIS Support Allocations associated with new funding
- Considerations once a Plan Review has been added
When is adding a Plan Review required?
When a Client has NDIS Supports Allocations in Activities associated with an NDIS Direct Funding record which spans a funding period that has since been reviewed and needs to change, to ensure expenditure is associated with the correct funding record.
For example, our Client Tim's current NDIS Funding period is the 10th of July, 2019 to the 30th of November, 2019. We found out they had a Plan Review and their new NDIS Plan commenced on the 1st of October 2019 and is due for review on the 30th of September 2020. However, Services have been delivered and Activities Signed Off related to the original funding record up until the 17th of October e.g:
Considering an Invoice Batch has been generated for these Activities, the Activity Sign Off cannot be removed and therefore the Client's Funding Source cannot be updated.
Due to the Client's NDIS Plan Review, these NDIS Support Allocations are now linked to the incorrect Funding record. A new Funding record needs to be created and these Allocations associated with this new record. The Plan Review feature has been designed to assist in a situation like this.
As mentioned earlier, it is important to note that an active NDIS Direct Client Funding record is required to be in place before a new record can be created using the Plan Review feature. If the Funding Period lapses, the Client's Funding will revert to 'Billable (No Funding)' as you can see in the example of Cliff above. For more information about how to avoid this from occurring, please review the article: Utilising the Plan Review feature to avoid 'Billable (No Funding)' issues once the Activity is locked linked below for reference.
What does adding a Plan Review do?
Adding a ‘Plan Review’ to the NDIS Direct Client Funding record will:
- Establish a new NDIS Direct Client Funding record based on the date range specified.
- Copy all NDIS Supports from the original NDIS Direct Client Funding record to the new one, complete with all settings such as Budgets and any Custom pricing.
- Move all NDIS Support Allocations that occur within the new Funding Period from the original funding to the new. This will ensure that all utilisation and expenditure is associated with the correct funding.
- Set the End Date of the original NDIS Direct Client Funding to the day before the Start Date of the new funding record.
Following this action, it is important that Budgets are reviewed for both the original and new funding records. Each of these points are outlined further below by going through an example. However, in addition to the above, the following is also updated:
Funding name
If the NDIS Direct Client Funding record has a custom name e.g. 'Support Coordination Funding' when the Plan Review is created, the new funding will retain the same custom name with the word 'reviewed' in brackets next to it e.g:
This may be updated as required, however, this will only appear as such in cases where a custom name has been saved for the funding record.
Calculated NDIS Support Item Budgets
When an NDIS Support Item has a calculated Budget, and the frequency other than 'Once' is used e.g. 'Per Week':
Once a Plan Review is added, this Budget will be recalculated to reflect the new funding period.
Price Guide Transition
In cases where the new funding record commences in a period when a new Price Guide is in use, for example, the original funding record is for the period of the 1st of August, 2018 - 31st of July, 2019 and the new funding commences on the 15th of July, 2019 - 14th of July, 2020; given a new NDIS Price Guide is in use, any NDIS Support Item calculated Budgets will be recalculated based on the prices as per the new Price Guide. Any Supports which have been configured with a Custom Price or Fixed Price Allocation will not be recalculated, however.
There are cases where some Support Items may not be possible to add to the new funding record if they are no longer included in the Price Guide in use in the new Funding. Price Guide Transition settings may also not be possible to carry across. In cases such as these, validation warnings have been included to keep you informed regarding this before proceeding e.g:
How to add a Plan Review
Continuing on from the above example, to add a Plan Review to the Client's funding, select the Actions menu within the relevant NDIS Direct Client Funding record:
Select 'Plan Review' to choose the settings for the new NDIS Direct Client Funding record:
The Original Funding Period is displayed for reference and the Funding Type is set to NDIS. The State may be changed where necessary, and the New Funding Start & End Dates may be selected. In this case, the dates of the 1st of October 2019 through to the 30th of September 2020 have been added to align with the Client's NDIS Plan and the schedule of supports in place:
It is important to note that the New Funding Start Date, must fall within the Start and End Dates of the original funding record. In addition, the New Funding Start Date cannot be set to earlier than two days after the original Start Date.
Plan Review confirmation
By adding a Plan Review for the updated funding dates, this will:
- Establish the new funding record complete with all settings such as Budgets and any Custom pricing.
- End the original funding the day prior to the new funding Start Date.
- Move all NDIS Support Allocations that occur within the new funding period from the original funding to the new.
Once ‘Confirm’ has been selected, we are redirected to the new Client Funding record. It is also important to note that once 'Confirm' has been selected, this cannot be undone. Therefore, it is important that you are ready to add the Plan Review before confirming this addition.
New funding record
The new funding record includes a 'Reviewed From' reference, including a link to the original funding this was created from:
All settings including the Financial Plan Management settings, Tags, Documents and Notes are copied to the new funding record, as well as all NDIS Supports including Budgets, Custom Pricing, etc. If a Document had been added to the NDIS Plan Document selection, this is the only item that is not carried over, given the reviewed funding is anticipated to be associated with a new NDIS Plan.
NDIS Support Allocations associated with new funding
Once the Plan Review is added, the NDIS Support Allocations that occur within the new funding period are automatically moved from the original funding to the new. If we refer to the example Activity from the 10th of October, 2019, our Client Tim's NDIS Support Allocations were associated with the original funding from the 10th of July, 2019 - 30th of November, 2019. Following the addition of this Plan Review, this is now associated with the new funding record:
This will ensure that all utilisation and expenditure is associated with the correct funding.
Original Funding record
Adding a Plan Review will also set the End Date of the original NDIS Direct Client Funding record to the day before the Start Date of the new funding record. As we can see, the original funding record in our example is now valid for the dates of the 10th of July, 2019 - 30th of September, 2019 as this is the day before the Start Date of the new funding record:
Considerations once a Plan Review has been added
NDIS Support Budgets included in both the original and the new NDIS Direct Client Funding records will need to be adjusted to account for the Plan Review. For example, the Budgets in the original funding may need to be reduced and Budgets in the new funding record may need to be adjusted or increased to reflect accurate values. E.g. the Budget for Category 1 needs to be reduced to $10,000:
Select 'Change Budget' then entered the amount:
This is is of particular importance if your organisation is using the Utilisation tab for reporting, or Client Statements as Budget information is included in the Summary:
