This article explains how to capture provider travel costs for a service when creating service delivered (SD) records from the Service Delivery Entry screen.
If you're not using Sessions, or if you need to claim travel for a service that doesn't have a session, you can do this from the Service Delivery Entry tab. When you make an entry for the labour cost of the service that was delivered, extra fields are shown to capture provider travel and non-labour travel costs.
Required packages
Last updated in version: Lumary 21 minor release 4
Before you begin...
You'll need:
- a current service agreement that allows provider travel claiming, and
- a category and service that allows provider travel claiming.
When including provider travel time, the system will use the rate of the service that was delivered to calculate the provider travel cost.
Once your service agreement is set up, go to the Service Delivery Entry screen and fill in the Service Delivered Information section. If you're tracking non-labour costs as separate items on your service agreement, you'll still need to use the primary service to create SD records.
Once you've added your primary service, to add travel:
- Scroll down to the Travelling To And From An Appointment section of the form.
- Click in the Travel Area drop-down list and select the travel area, as defined by the NDIS. The maximum travel time that can be charged for each area will be displayed next to the field once an option is selected.
Travel area warnings won't appear if your environment is set up to override NDIS travel limits.
The Service Delivered form you see may vary from this example depending on whether the client's service agreement or the services being delivered allow for travel. Fields will only be shown for travel that is able to be claimed.
You may also see fields relating to travel from an appointment.
- Use the Total Travel Time to Appt (mins) field to enter the time in minutes spent travelling to the appointment.
The time spent travelling is used to calculate the labour costs associated with travelling to or from an appointment. This time will be charged per minute at the rate shown after the Total Travel Time to Appt (mins) field. This rate is calculated from the rate that is charged for the primary service that the travel is related to or from the negotiated rate in the client's service agreement, if they have one.
- Use the Total Distance Travelled to Appt (KM) field to enter the distance in kilometres travelled to the appointment.
The distance travelled is used to calculate part of the non-labour costs associated with travelling to or from an appointment. This may involve the costs associated with running a vehicle and is charged per km travelled. The rate charged per km is shown next to the Total Distance Travelled to Appt (KM) field. This rate will be taken from the default rate set by your organisation, or the agreed travel non-labour rate set in the agreement for the client, if they have one.
If you're planning to claim non-labour expenses, you'll need to set Total Travel Time or Total Distance Travelled to a value of 0 or more. This will ensure that you can generate expense SD records for non-labour expenses.
- In the Client Portion field, enter the portion of the travel that will be charged to the client. If the cost is being apportioned between multiple clients, new entries will need to be added in the Service Delivery Entry screen for each individual client.
Non-labour expenses are expenses incurred beyond the time taken for the service to be delivered. These fields can be used to capture expenses like road tolls or parking fees.
- If any non-labour travel expenses were incurred, go to the the Travel Non-Labour Expenses section and click on the Add Expense text link. You must enter zero or a greater value in the related Total Travel Time or Total Distance Travelled fields to reveal the link and to generate SD records for expenses.
- Clicking on an Add Expense text link reveals fields for capturing expenses. These fields are described in the following table.
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Expense Description | A description of the expense. For example, road toll or parking fee. |
| Amount | The cost of the expense. |
| Client Portion | The percentage of the expense that will be charged to the client selected for this entry. |
- To add multiple expenses, click on the Add Expense text link again to add another row and then fill in the details.
- If the primary service allows claiming for travel from the appointment, the Travelling from an Appointment checkbox will appear. Put a tick in this checkbox to reveal fields to capture travel from the appointment. These fields work the same way as the fields used to enter travel to the appointment.
- If you're also claiming for time spent transporting the client during the appointment, follow the steps for capturing transport.
- If you're not claiming for transport, scroll to the bottom of the form and fill in any further Comments or Case Notes, if required.
If you add a case note title, you'll also need to add text to the Case Note field to create a case note. If you add text to the Case Note field and leave the Case Note Title blank, the SD record number will be used for the title.
- If the client has approved the service, put a tick in the Client Accepted checkbox. Leave this unchecked if the client still needs to confirm details of the service.
- Click on the Save button.
- SD records created from your entry will now appear in the Services Delivered list. Individual SD records will be generated for travel labour time, and each non-labour expense for both travel and transport services. This may result in many SD records for each entry.