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Your NDIS Plan Explained: A Simple Guide to Understanding Your Funding
Getting your NDIS plan is one thing. Understanding what everything in it actually means can be another.
Your NDIS plan sets out your goals, the supports funded for you, how much funding you have and how that funding can be used.
Think of your plan like a roadmap with a budget attached. Your goals help describe where you want to go, your supports can help you get there, and your funding helps pay for eligible supports along the way.
Here's how to make sense of it.
What's actually in your NDIS plan?
Your plan includes information about:
- your situation and the people who support you
- your goals
- your NDIS supports
- your total funding
- your support budgets
- who manages your funding
- how long your plan runs
- your funding periods.
Every plan is individual. You might not have funding in every support budget because your plan is based on your own disability support needs.
Source: [NDIS: What is an NDIS plan?]
Understanding your NDIS support budgets
NDIS plans have four support budgets:
Core Supports
Supports that can help with everyday activities, disability-related needs and participating in your community.
Capacity Building Supports
Supports focused on building your skills and independence. Depending on your plan, this can include things such as therapy and employment supports.
Capital Supports
Generally higher-cost supports such as assistive technology, home modifications or vehicle modifications.
Recurring Supports
Regular payments for specific ongoing NDIS supports.
You won't necessarily have funding in all four.
Think of your NDIS funding like a cupboard with different shelves. Each shelf holds funding for a different purpose, with its own rules about what you can use it for.
That's why seeing one big dollar figure at the top of your plan doesn't mean you can spend that amount however you like.
Source: [NDIS: Guide to NDIS support budgets]
What are support categories?
Inside your support budgets are more specific support categories.
If your support budget is the shelf, think of support categories as the labelled containers sitting on it.
For example, support categories can include Assistance with Daily Life, Consumables and Assistive Technology.
Some supports are flexible, while others are stated and must be used for the particular support described in your plan.
We'll unpack the individual budgets and categories in separate guides so you don't have to get your head around the whole lot at once.
What are funding periods?
Your plan can also divide your funding into funding periods.
A funding period determines when part of your funding becomes available. Funding periods will usually be three months, although this can vary.
Think of it like receiving your annual salary throughout the year instead of getting the whole amount on 1 January.
Funding periods don't reduce the total funding in your plan. They change when you can access parts of it.
Unused funding can generally move into the next funding period within the same plan, but funding left when the overall plan ends does not roll into your next plan.
Source: [NDIS: What is NDIS funding?]
Who manages your NDIS funding?
There are three main ways NDIS funding can be managed:
Self-managed: You, your nominee or representative manage the relevant funding, payments and financial records.
Plan-managed: A registered plan manager manages the relevant funding, including paying providers and keeping financial records.
NDIA-managed: The NDIA manages the relevant funding, provider payments and financial records.
Your plan can also use a combination of these options.
Source: [NDIS: Guide to your management options]
Where should you start?
If your plan feels complicated, don't try to decipher everything at once.
Start with four questions:
1. What support budgets do I have?
2. How much funding is available?
3. What can that funding be used for?
4. Who is managing it?
Once those four things are clear, the rest becomes much easier to unpack.
Need help keeping track of your NDIS funding?
If your funding is plan-managed, Kismet can help manage your provider invoices and payments and help you keep track of your budgets and spending.
Learn more about Kismet Plan Management.