How to Cancel Invoice Items in a Direct Invoice
There are cases where Invoice Items included in a Direct Invoice need to be Cancelled, such as when a Plan Manager has advised a specific Support could not be paid. This usually results in providers having to reverse the transaction in their finance system.
To ensure that SupportAbility is able to mirror these reversed transactions, the ability to Cancel Invoice Items in Direct Invoices is now available in SupportAbility from the upgrade to v7.12 (July 2021).
This article discusses how to Cancel Invoice Items, how this information is displayed in various places and how to search for Cancellations when they are associated with NDIS Support Allocations.
Privileges: The 'View Financial Information' privilege is required, in combination with either:
- the ‘Edit Client Records Across ALL Services’ privilege, or
- the ‘Team Leader for ALL Services’ privilege.
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:
- Can all Invoice Items in a Direct Invoice be Cancelled?
- What does Cancelling an Invoice Item in a Direct Invoice do?
- How to Cancel an Invoice Item in a Direct Invoice
- Reverting the Processing Status of Cancelled as required
- Searching for Cancellations associated with NDIS Support Allocations
Can all Invoice Items be Cancelled in a Direct Invoice Batch?
Yes, all Invoice Items can be Cancelled in a Direct Invoice, including Non-NDIS Invoice Items.
The only exception to this is NDIA Invoices, it is important to note that Cancellations for NDIA Invoices can only be actioned from the associated BPR and this is then displayed in the NDIA Invoice record:
For more information, please see the How to Cancel Accepted Allocations in a Direct BPR article linked below for reference.
What does Cancelling an Invoice Item in a Direct Invoice do?
Invoice Items that are Cancelled will:
- Appear with the Processing Status of 'Cancelled' on the View/Edit Invoice record and many other places
- No longer be included in the Total Invoice value, Client's Funding Budget Utilisation, or as Expenditure Client Funding Statements
When an Invoice Item has been Cancelled, it has essentially been written off in SupportAbility so that it is no longer included in the Total Invoiced value:
In the Total Values of the Client's Activities tab:
As part of the Client's Funding Utilisation:
Or, as Expenditure in their Client Funding Statement:
Invoice Items that have been Cancelled will appear with a 'Cancellations' badge in the Finance section of the Activity:
As well as in the 'Finance Information' window: 
For Invoice Items associated with NDIS Support Allocations, the 'Finance Status' section in the NDIS Support Allocations window of the Activity, will reflect this for the relevant Allocation/s:
How to Cancel an Invoice Item in a Direct Invoice
To Cancel an Invoice Item in a Direct Invoice, first, locate the relevant Invoice/s.
There are a number of ways to locate Invoices, including using the Direct Invoice Batch Search:
From the Direct Invoice Batch List:
From the Client's Funding tab:
Or the Financial Records window in the related Activity:
Once the relevant Invoice has been located, open the record and then select the relevant Invoice Item:
Noting that the number of Invoice Items selected is displayed at the bottom of the page for reference e.g. 1 selected of 1 in this case.
Navigate to the Bulk Actions menu and select 'Cancel Invoice Item':
A confirmation window opens allowing Append Notes to be added, which may come in handy to explain the reason for the Invoice Item being Cancelled:
Once Confirm is selected, the Invoice Item is then 'Cancelled':
The Invoice Details section now includes this as part of the number of 'Cancelled Items' and can be used to filter the list of Invoice Items to Cancelled Items specifically when a bigger number of Invoice Items are included in the Invoice:
Make Support unavailable option for Invoice Items related to NDIS Support Allocations
When Invoice Items are associated with NDIS Support Allocations for Client's who are Self Managing or have a Plan Manager, in addition to Cancelling the Invoice Item, an option is available to make the associated Supports unavailable for further Allocation in the relevant Client Funding records:
Leaving this set to 'No' means that the associated Supports as configured in the Client's NDIS Direct Funding record will not be updated, and will continue to be available for Allocation in Activities. The selected Invoice Item/s will be Cancelled only once Confirm is selected. Append Notes can be used to communicate why the Cancellation was required for example.
Selecting 'Yes' means that the Supports associated with these Allocations i.e. the Flexible Category, or the specific Support Item/s, will be made 'Unavailable' in the Client's NDIS Direct Funding record upon processing this action, to ensure they can no longer be Allocated in Activities e.g:
N.B. This can be undone at any time as required, by selecting the contextual menu (icon with three dots to the right-hand side of the Support) in the Direct Client Funding record and selecting 'Make available':
Selecting 'Yes' to make these Supports unavailable might come in handy if the participant has run out of funds for this Support and you do not want Staff Members to be able to Allocate this any longer:
However, it is important to review the blue message listing the associated Supports that will be made unavailable. This may not be the preferred course of action if the Client had a Flexible Category Budget, like in the above example as it will mean no Supports from the relevant Category can be Allocated any longer.
If Yes is selected, the Support will be updated to unavailable in the Client's Funding record once this has been confirmed and a blue message will appear regarding this against the relevant Invoice Items:
N.B. The 'Cancel Invoice Item' modal will no longer appear when Cancelling any other Invoice Items associated with the same Support.
Reverting the Processing Status of Cancelled as required
When an Invoice Item has been Cancelled, it is possible to revert this as required.
To revert this action, select the required Invoice Item with the Processing Status of 'Cancelled'. Navigate to the Bulk Actions menu and select 'Remove Cancellation':
You will be asked to confirm this action:
Once confirmed, the Invoice Item will no longer have a Processing Status and will again be calculated as part of the Total Invoiced value, the Client's Funding Utilisation and Expenditure in Client Funding Statements:
Notes may be added to explain these changes as required.
Searching for Cancelled Invoice Items associated with NDIS Support Allocations
To search for Cancelled Invoice Items that are associated with NDIS Support Allocations we recommend using the Allocations Report accessible from the Finance menu:
Select 'Yes' to search for all Cancelled Allocations in the Finance section of the Report:
Noting this will display both Rejected and Accepted Allocations in the search results:
However, you can use the Invoicing Status search criteria in addition to this to filter the listed down to Allocations that have been Invoiced only too as required.
The results include a link to the related Activity, Client Funding record and Invoice Batch this is associated with too where relevant.