Stage 03
Three kinds of participant, three ways you get paid
How a participant's plan is managed decides who pays you, how you claim, whether you need to be registered, and which deadline applies.
Why this is the first question, not a detail
How a plan is managed is not an administrative footnote. It decides whether you are permitted to take the participant, who owes you money, and what you do after a session to get it.
The comparison
| Question | NDIA-managed | Plan-managed | Self-managed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who pays you | The agency | The plan manager | The participant |
| How you claim | Payment request in the myplace provider portal | Invoice the plan manager, who enters the claim | Invoice the participant, then send a receipt to acquit |
| Registered provider | Required | Not required | Not required |
| Recorded as a "my provider" | Required before you submit a payment request | — | — |
| ABN on the invoice | — | Required unless exempt; if exempt, a statement by a supplier form | — |
| Claim deadline | 90 days from the end of a service booking | 2 years after delivery | 2 years after delivery |
1. Guide to getting paid. ndis.gov.au · 2. What are the responsibilities of a provider. ndis.gov.au
NDIA-managed (also called agency-managed)
Sourced
"You'll need to submit a payment request through the myplace provider portal if your participant has NDIA-managed funding."3
"You need to submit a payment request within 90 days from the end of a service booking."3
"You also need to be recorded as a my provider before you submit your payment request."3
3. Guide to getting paid. ndis.gov.au
For you: two gates before you can claim — registration, and being recorded as a my provider — then a portal payment request against a tighter deadline than the other two paths.
Plan-managed
Sourced
"You need to send invoices directly to a participant's plan manager if they have a plan manager helping them."4
"The plan manager will process the claim for payment after they receive your invoice. The plan manager enters your claim into the relevant provider portal."4
The invoice "must include a valid Australian Business Number (ABN) – unless you are exempt from providing an ABN".4
4. Guide to getting paid. ndis.gov.au
For you: you invoice the plan manager, who does the portal work. Registration is not required. Your ABN is.
Self-managed
Sourced
"Send your invoice to self-managed participants and they'll pay it. After they've paid your invoice, send them a receipt to acquit the expense against their plan. They do this by entering your receipt or paid invoice into the participant portal."5
5. Guide to getting paid. ndis.gov.au
For you: you invoice the participant, the participant pays you, and then you send a receipt so they can acquit it. Registration is not required. The receipt step is easy to forget because the money has already arrived.
From practice, not the guidance
The three paths differ less in difficulty than in where the attention has to sit. One routes through a system you log into; the others route through an invoice you send and then follow. What tends to catch people out is not the mechanics of any single path but assuming the path they learned first is the one they are on.
What this changes upstream
This is the question the rest of the setup answers to.
If you have not settled your registration position, this page is the reason to. It is also the reason the enquiry conversation asks how the plan is managed before it asks anything else.
One page
The one-pager
Your first scheme participant: the setup and the sequence.
The same material as this site, compressed onto one sheet you can keep beside the desk while you set the first one up — what has to exist first, the order the work runs in, and the deadlines that bite. Same sources, cited as footnotes.
- What has to exist before the first support
- The sequence, and the deadlines that bite
- Where the software helps, and where it does not
We email it. Leave your details and it comes to you — no account, no login.