Staffing & funding forecast

NDIS plan underspend & staffing forecast: See the underspend while there's still time to fix it.

Under the NDIS, the expensive failure usually isn't a plan running out — it's a plan finishing with money unspent: support the participant was funded for and never received, and a reason the next plan may be cut. Corella projects every active service agreement to its end date, sets staffing demand against the people you actually have, and prices a shift before anyone is on it. It's arithmetic you can check by hand.

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Colleagues planning at a glass wall of notes

The Corella forecast, staffing tab: tiles for 403 unfilled hours over the next six weeks, no hours beyond capacity, two plans that will run out, two heading for underspend and $18,395 of committed revenue ahead, above a week-by-week table of rostered, unfilled, still-to-be-scheduled and expected hours against capacity, each week marked gaps to fill.

Underspend firstEvery plan, to its end date

Checkable arithmeticEvery figure, by hand

How it flows

From the roster you have to the gaps and the money ahead.

1Read what you keep
The roster, every active service agreement and its budget, the invoices you have raised, your price book, and each staff member's weekly cap and approved leave — all of it already in Corella.
2Value what's booked
Every rostered shift is valued with the time bands, per-participant prices and group splits your invoices use.
3Carry it to the end
Past the last rostered shift, each participant's own daily spend carries their plan to its end date; staffing weeks are topped up from your own eight-week pattern.
4Act while it's cheap
Plans heading for underspend or running out, weeks short of staff and shifts that lose money are named while there's still time to change them, weeks before plan review or payday.

What people ask first

The short answers, up front.

How is the forecast worked out?
As arithmetic over data you already keep — the roster, agreements, invoices and price book. The screen says so in its first line, and every figure can be checked by hand.
Why lead with underspend?
Because under the NDIS it's the common, expensive failure: support never delivered, and a plan that may be cut at review. Overspend announces itself.
How far ahead does it look?
Staffing: four, six, eight or twelve weeks. Funding: each agreement to its own end date. Revenue: three months back and three ahead.
Where does capacity come from?
Each support staff member's weekly cap, less approved leave. Without a cap, your SCHADS ordinary-hours setting — 38 unless you change it — stands in.
How is rostered work priced?
From your price book, with the time bands, per-participant prices and group splits your invoices use.
What's a shift margin?
Revenue minus the cost of delivering the shift — pay, allowances, paid travel and kilometres: the gross contribution each shift makes, before overheads.
Can you cost a shift nobody is on?
Yes. An unfilled slot runs through the real pay engine at the pay group most of your staff are on, and is labelled an estimate.
Who sees margins?
Administrators and Finance, and coordinators once your organisation switches that on. Margins stay with the office.
What does it need from us?
Nothing new: current rosters, active agreements with budgets, invoices run regularly, and weekly caps on staff profiles to sharpen capacity.

Whose screen

The same job, from each seat.

A team meeting around a table with laptops

In the office

Finance and the office work from Insights → Forecast: five tiles across the top — unfilled hours, hours beyond capacity, plans that will run out, plans heading for underspend and committed revenue ahead — then a tab each for staffing, plan funding and revenue. Each participant's Funding tab carries the same projection for their own plan, and Shift margins sits beside the forecast, a week at a time, filtered to the shifts that need attention or aren't filled yet.

On the phone

Forecasts and margins are office screens. What a worker sees — their own shifts, and open shifts they can take — is how the gaps the staffing forecast names get filled.

A worked example

One plan, projected to its end date.

A participant's plan on day 280 of 365, with two two-hour weekday visits a week rostered for the next eight weeks. The plan, the spend and the roster are demo figures; the price of each visit is the NDIS limit for standard weekday daytime support.

Plan budget (demo): $26,000 · 365 days
Invoiced to date, day 280: $15,400 → $55.00 a day
Rostered ahead: 16 visits × $147.16: $2,354.56
After the roster ends: 29 days × $55.00: $1,595.00
Projected total: $19,349.56
Projected underspend: $6,650.44 · 26% of the plan
The same gap, in two-hour visits: about 45 not yet delivered
Daily alert to the office: raised — 26% unspent, 85 days to go

$147.16 is two hours at $73.58, the NDIS Pricing Schedule 2026-27 limit for standard weekday daytime support (from 1 July 2026, unchanged by the 24 September 2026 determination). Everything else is a demo figure. The “Heading for underspend” verdict appears once a plan is projected at least 10% unspent; the alert once it's at least 20% with 90 days or under to go.

In detail

The detail, on the real screens.

The underspend, while it's still fixable

For every active service agreement the Plan funding tab shows what has been invoiced inside the plan, the value of shifts already rostered ahead, the daily burn so far, the date the roster reaches, the projected total and a verdict — on track, heading for underspend, or will run out, with the date it's expected to hit the budget. The projection is plain: invoiced to date, plus rostered work, plus the participant's own average daily spend for the days after the roster ends. A plan projected to finish at least 10% under its budget is flagged as heading for underspend, in words the office can act on: that's support the participant was funded for and won't have received. The same projection sits on each participant's Funding tab, and the daily alert sweep tells the office when a plan needs a conversation now rather than at review.

The forecast's Plan funding tab: tiles counting plans heading for underspend and plans that will run out, then one row per plan with its invoiced amount, value rostered ahead, amount unspent today, daily burn, the date the roster reaches, a projected total and a verdict badge — Each plan: invoiced, rostered ahead, burn rate and a verdict

What it values, and how

Rostered work on every active service agreement is valued with the same time bands, per-participant price overrides and group-shift splits your invoices use. Every figure says what it is: services priced per kilometre or per item, which take actual figures, are labelled on the screen, and a shift with no service or no price is counted as one still to be valued rather than guessed.

A woman reviewing figures on her computer screen

Staffing demand against real capacity

Week by week for the next four, six, eight or twelve weeks: hours rostered to named staff, hours still unfilled, and what is still likely to be scheduled — the gap between what's booked and your own eight-week average, pro-rated for how much of the current week is left. Capacity is each active support staff member's weekly cap, less approved leave; anyone without a cap counts at your SCHADS ordinary-hours setting, 38 unless you change it, and the screen says how many people that is. Each week gets a verdict — covered, gaps to fill, or short by so many hours — and a utilisation bar that changes colour at 85% of capacity and again at 100%. The unfilled hours are the same shifts the job board ranks the best-matched people for.

The week board for 7 to 13 September 2026, staff view: an Unassigned row holding one shift, staff rows with their hours for the week, an Award check button showing 8, and a banner that 8 shifts sit past a SCHADS limit, to fix before the week is worked, not at payroll.

Revenue in three honest layers

Month by month, three months back and three ahead, split into invoiced, delivered but not yet invoiced, and rostered ahead — so the gap between work done and money raised is visible, and next month's number rests on shifts that exist rather than on hope. The committed-revenue tile at the top of the forecast totals the months ahead. Delivered-but-not-invoiced is the layer worth watching: it's work done and not yet billed, and the Uninvoiced work report lists the completed and approved shifts that aren't on an invoice yet, with a CSV.

The Reports screen: eight reports listed — staff hours, client service hours, budget utilisation, document expiry, incident register, revenue, uninvoiced work and cancellations — with staff hours open, showing shifts, rostered hours, clocked hours and kilometres per staff member, and a CSV button.

Build your own report — and share it safely

Beside the ready-made reports, the report builder takes any of ten sets of data — shifts, timesheets, invoices and their lines, payments received, the people you support, staff and their documents, incidents and training — and lets you choose the period, the columns, filters, up to three groupings with totals, and a sort. Run it, download a CSV, or save it and share it. Each person is offered only the data their own access allows, and a shared report shows every viewer only what they could already see.

Corella's report builder in the NDIS demo: Timesheets for 1 to 30 September 2026, grouped by carer, with the total rostered hours beside the total worked hours — seven rows, from Amelia Brown's 28 rostered and 26.02 worked to Tom Kelly's 28 and 28.18 — Timesheets grouped by carer — rostered against worked hours in one run (NDIS demo)

The margin on a shift, before anyone is on it

Shift margins takes a week at a time and sets each shift's revenue against what it costs to deliver — pay, allowances, paid travel time and kilometres — with a verdict: healthy, low margin, loss-making, or can't tell. Cost comes from the same SCHADS-style pay engine that builds your pay run, and revenue from the same price-guide engine that raises your invoices, so the two sides are comparable. Because both engines are Corella's own, a shift nobody has been assigned to can be costed too: an unfilled slot is run through the pay engine at the rates of the pay group most of your staff are on, and labelled an estimate. That puts the award warning and the margin on the same unfilled shift, while it's still free to change. Filters narrow the week to the shifts that need attention, or the ones not yet filled.

Shift margins for a week: a note that these are estimates from the engines that build your pay run and your invoices, with unfilled slots costed at a named pay group's rates; tiles for revenue, cost to deliver, gross margin and the shifts needing attention; filters for all shifts, needs attention and not yet filled; and rows showing each shift's revenue, cost, margin and a Healthy verdict.

Who sees the money, and when the office is told

The forecast needs the finance level or above: Finance, Coordinator or Administrator. Shift margins is narrower on purpose, because a margin on a shift is information about a colleague's pay — Administrators and Finance always see it, and coordinators once your organisation turns that on in Settings → Shift margins; it stays an office screen. The line between a healthy and a low margin is yours to set: 15% unless you change it. Funding alerts from the daily sweep go to administrators, coordinators and finance, linked to the participant's Funding tab: a plan projected to run out early, a plan past your budget-alert percentage (85% by default), and a plan heading for at least 20% unspent with 90 days or under to go.

Shift margins on the NDIS demo filtered to Needs attention: the week's revenue, cost to deliver and gross margin, and five shifts — three marked Low margin, and two marked Loss-making, one of them with both places still to fill — Needs attention — the loss-making shifts, and the ones under your low-margin line

Straight answers

Safety built in: what warns you, and what it stops.

Warns you

A plan projected to finish at least 10% unspent reads “Heading for underspend”; one projected to run out reads “Will run out”, with the date it's expected to hit the budget.
The daily sweep alerts the office when a plan will run out early, passes your budget-alert percentage (85% by default), or is heading for at least 20% unspent with 90 days or under to go.
A week whose expected hours outrun capacity reads “Short” with the hours; a week with unfilled shifts reads “Gaps to fill”.
A shift at or below your low-margin line (15% unless you change it) reads “Low margin”; below zero, “Loss-making”.
A shift with no service, no rate for its time band, or a worker with no pay group reads “Can't tell” with the reason, kept apart from losses and healthy shifts.

Stops you

Margins are refused to anyone not allowed to see them: a coordinator without the setting, and every care worker, is sent back to the dashboard.
The forecast is refused below the finance level.

Who stays responsible

The forecast shows where the roster and the funding are heading; what to do about it stays with your coordinators and finance lead. Whether to roster more support, talk with a participant and their coordinator about the plan, fill a gap, or run a low-margin shift anyway is a person's decision — and a margin is an estimate, to be checked against your own award obligations before anyone acts on it.

The rulebook

Questions, answered properly.

A woman at her laptop looking up and smiling, her hand at her chin

What is the forecast built from?

Arithmetic over data you already keep — the roster, active service agreements, the invoices you've raised, the price book and your own eight-week scheduling pattern. The screen says so in its first line, and every figure can be checked by hand; finance people do.

Why lead with underspend instead of running out?

Because under the NDIS, underspend is the common and expensive failure. A plan that ends with money unspent is support the participant never received — and at review it can read as evidence the funding wasn't needed. Overspend announces itself; underspend hides until it's too late to deliver. So the forecast leads with it.

How is a plan's projection worked out?

Invoiced to date inside the plan, plus the value of shifts already rostered ahead, plus the participant's own average daily spend so far for the days after the roster ends. A projection at least 10% under the budget reads “Heading for underspend”; one over it reads “Will run out”, with the date it's expected to hit the budget. The same headline appears on the participant's Funding tab.

What counts as spend?

Invoiced work — non-void invoice lines dated inside the plan — so running invoices regularly keeps the projection current, and the Uninvoiced work report lists the completed and approved shifts still to invoice.

How does the forecast value rostered work?

With the time bands, per-participant prices and group splits your invoices use. Every figure says what it is: services priced per kilometre or per item, which take actual figures, are labelled on the screen rather than guessed.

What does the staffing forecast count as capacity?

Each active support staff member's weekly cap, less any approved leave in that week. Anyone without a cap counts at your SCHADS ordinary-hours setting — 38 unless you change it — and the screen tells you how many people that is, so setting caps on staff profiles sharpens it. Capacity counts your support staff — the people who deliver the work.

What is a shift margin, exactly?

Revenue minus the cost of delivering the shift: pay, allowances, paid travel time and kilometres. It's gross contribution, before overheads — insurance, vehicles, office wages, rent — so it shows what each shift contributes towards them. The screen calls its figures estimates.

How can you cost a shift nobody is assigned to?

Both engines are Corella's own. An unfilled slot is run through the real pay engine at the rates of the pay group most of your staff are on — costed on its hours — and the row is labelled an estimate. Revenue comes from the same price-guide engine that builds invoices. A worker with no pay group makes the row “Can't tell”, with the reason.

Who can see margins?

Administrators and Finance, and coordinators once your organisation turns it on in Settings → Shift margins — a choice left to you, because a per-shift margin is information about colleagues' pay. It stays with the office.

What does the forecast leave to us?

The decision. It names the plans, weeks and shifts that need one — roster more support, talk with the participant and their coordinator about the plan, fill a gap, or run a low-margin shift knowingly — and your roster stays exactly as you built it.

What does it need from us to work?

Nothing new. It reads the roster, the service agreements, the invoices and the price book you already keep, and the scheduling pattern comes from your own history. Keep those current — and run invoices regularly — and the forecast is current.

Guides for this

Read the rule behind it.

Sources

Each link opens the original, so you can read the rule where it's written.

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