The Problem: A Finance Function That Had Not Kept Pace With Growth
A Melbourne-based NDIS registered provider of community support and daily living services had grown rapidly following registration. Starting with six participants three years prior, the organisation had scaled to support over 110 participants and employed 34 support workers across metropolitan Melbourne and inner regional Victoria.
But the finance function had not scaled with the business. When Marginfy was engaged, the provider was managing its entire financial operation from a combination of spreadsheets, a basic accounting package that had been set up by a bookkeeper with no NDIS sector experience, and a manual invoicing process that the operations coordinator described as "a constant source of stress."
The compliance risks were significant. A preliminary review identified that several service categories were being invoiced at rates that did not align with the current NDIS Price Guide — in some cases below the allowable maximum, in others at rates that had not been updated since the previous financial year. One service line was being billed at a rate that had been superseded two price guide iterations ago.
Cash flow was chronically difficult to predict. Claims were submitted to the NDIS portal on an irregular basis — typically when the operations coordinator had time to batch them — rather than systematically. The average lag between service delivery and claim submission was 23 days, with some claims running beyond 40 days. This created rolling cash shortfalls that the director was managing through a line of credit that should not have been necessary.
The board was receiving a single-page financial update at its quarterly meetings. There was no budget-to-actual reporting, no visibility into participant-level profitability, and no forward cash flow modelling. The organisation was, in the director's words, "flying blind."
Marginfy's Approach
Marginfy structured the engagement in three workstreams: a pricing compliance audit, a finance system implementation, and a reporting and cash flow framework build.
The pricing audit was the first priority given the compliance exposure. Marginfy mapped every active service agreement against the current NDIS Price Guide, cross-referencing support category, registration group, and applicable loading for time-of-day and participant-specific conditions. The audit identified 14 service agreements with pricing errors. Seven were below the price guide maximum, representing revenue the organisation was legally entitled to but had not been collecting. The total annual revenue impact of the underpricing alone was approximately $95,000.
The remaining agreements with errors were corrected and reissued to participants and their plan managers, with a clear communication prepared by Marginfy to ensure the adjustments were explained professionally and in a participant-centred way.
The finance system workstream involved selecting and implementing a purpose-fit accounting solution with NDIS-aware capabilities, replacing the legacy system that had been creating reconciliation difficulties. The chart of accounts was redesigned around NDIS support categories to enable accurate service-line reporting. Integration with the provider's participant management system was configured to automate the claim submission workflow, removing the manual batching process that had been causing cash flow delays.
The cash flow framework was built around a 13-week rolling forecast model, updated weekly from claim submission data and calibrated against average NDIS payment turnaround times. The model gave the director, for the first time, a reliable view of expected cash receipts three months out.
The Results
The improvements materialised across all three workstreams within the five-month engagement period.
On compliance, the organisation achieved full alignment with the current NDIS Price Guide across all service agreements. The revenue recovery from corrected underpricing — approximately $95,000 annualised — immediately improved the viability of the business without any change to the services being delivered.
On cash flow, the transition to systematic, automated claim submission reduced the average lag between service delivery and claim lodgement from 23 days to under 5 days. Combined with more consistent claim batching, average cash collection improved by approximately three weeks. The director was able to retire the line of credit within two months of the new process going live.
On reporting, the board now receives a monthly dashboard covering revenue by support category, budget-to-actual variance, participant-level contribution margin, and a 13-week cash flow forecast. Decisions about staffing, new participant intake, and operational investment are now made with financial data, rather than in spite of its absence.
The director reflected that the most significant change was cultural: the finance function had moved from being a source of anxiety to a source of confidence. The organisation is now in a position to pursue its next growth phase — including registration for additional support categories — from a financially stable and compliant foundation.