NDIS GUIDE FOR GARDENERS, CLEANERS AND HANDYMEN: GETTING PAID UNDER THE NDIS

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has opened up many opportunities for small gardening, cleaning and home maintenance businesses. But the NDIS also comes with many new rules and guidelines that you should be aware of to run your business well. For this reason we have created this NDIS guide to assist gardeners, cleaners and handymen in getting paid under the scheme.

This NDIS guide breaks down exactly what activities the NDIS will fund (and what they won’t) and how to get paid easily and quickly.

What does the NDIS fund?

The NDIS only funds a support if it is considered ‘reasonable and necessary’ and is directly related to a person’s disability. As each NDIS participant’s plan is unique, exactly what’s covered varies from person to person.

As a general rule, if they can’t perform a task – like vacuuming or mowing the lawn – because of their disability, the NDIS can fund it. If a task requires a specialist, regardless of whether the customer has a disability or not – such as hiring an electrician to rewire a socket – it won’t be covered by the NDIS.

How to invoice your NDIS customers

The NDIS has very specific requirements for invoicing:

The NDIS uses an hourly-rate system, so your invoice must clearly state how many hours you worked and at what hourly rate. The NDIS will not accept just a price for the job on your invoice without breaking it up into hours.  

If a job involves any incidental costs (i.e for transport or for materials like cleaning chemicals, paint or lawn fertiliser), you’ll need to have them built into your hourly rate
The NDIS regulates the maximum hourly rate that you can charge to participants who are Agency or Plan Managed. The NDIS price guide has more information on these categories, but currently, the amounts are capped at: 

Household Tasks 1 Assistance with daily life 01_019_0120_1_1 House And/Or Yard Maintenance Performing essential house and/or yard activities that the participant is not able to undertake.     $48.28
Household Tasks 1 Assistance with daily life 01_020_0120_1_1 House Cleaning And Other Household Activities Performing essential house cleaning activities that the participant is not able to undertake.      $49.16

Self Managed participants are not constrained by the NDIS Price cap.

In order to be processed by the NDIS, your invoice must include the following information.

• Your business name & ABN
• An invoice number (you can make this up, but it must be unique to your business)
• The customer’s full legal name
• Both the date that the invoice was issued AND the date the job was carried out
• How many hours you worked and at what hourly rate
• Invoice total (including GST - the GST cannot be on top of the maximum hourly rate).

You can also use our handy template – be sure to fill out every section.  

Want to see a good example? Here’s one.

The NDIS prefers invoices not to be handwritten – but if you do, make sure that everything is clear and can’t be misinterpreted.

Top tips to get paid without stress

• Break your price up into an hourly rate and include all the above information on your invoice.
• If a job might cost more than the NDIS will cover, be sure to raise this with your customer first. The customer will have to pay the additional costs.
• Setting up a service agreement with your NDIS customers will help protect you from any surprises. 

If your customers use Plan Partners as their Plan Manager:

• Invoices will usually be paid within 7-8 business days. Find out more.
• You can easily keep track of the payment of your invoices in your own online Dashboard. 
• For more information, see our Service Providers page.

This blog was originally posted by Plan Partners, NDIS plan managers