The introduction of the NDIS has resulted in a transformation of the disability sector and it hasn’t been an easy journey. Disability providers range from small, local organisations to $100 million national entities that are household names. The common denominators have been their unrelenting passion to provide great services to the people who rely on them and government block funding grants for most of their funding.

The NDIS has created a disability marketplace in which providers deliver services to customers, after approval from NDIA, and charge fees-for-service. Provider organisations now need to think and act like a business, focussing on billings and cash receipts, analysing whether services and even individual clients are covering costs. Early advice from NDIA was that prices would be set to support overheads (Indirect support costs such as HR, Finance and the CEO’s office) of around 12%, while most providers were running at over 20%.

Saward Dawson now convene the Victorian Finance Community of Practice. The group meets bi-monthly, in person at the NDS office in Parkville and also remotely via webinar. We have been involved with the NDIS since the early planning stage and have worked with many providers since the trial-sites began in 2015.

We have assisted providers address a variety of challenges, including:

• Costing their exiting services and assessing against NDIS prices to determine surplus or deficit.
• Analysing the mix of existing services and forecasting the annual total surplus or deficit.
• Extracting data from various IT systems (eg: accounting, payroll, CMS) and creating new reports to assist billing.
• Operations staff not seeing costs or billing as part of their jobs, requiring Finance staff to undertake costly corrections.
• Poor data accuracy causing rejections of billings by NDIS, requiring reconciliation and follow-up.
• Pre-acquisition due diligence and assistance with the subsequent merger of two entities.
• General operating advice, including IT system implementation, FBT concessions, Budget & Forecast preparation, improving Management & Board Reports, Governance, etc.

Please contact us to see how your organisation can benefit from our significant experience in NDIS matched with our technical expertise in accounting, data management and IT systems.