We’re committed to helping you manage your own funding if that’s what you want to do. Managing your own funding can give you more choice and control over how the funding in your plan is used.
Self-managing your funding means you’ll have the choice to decide what supports you buy in line with your plan. You can decide who provides these supports, and how they are delivered. You can also negotiate costs above or below the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits . This can help you arrange your supports in a way that gives you the best value.
You’ll also be responsible for receiving your funding, arranging your supports and paying your providers on time. You’ll need to keep records of invoices and receipts for 5 years, and meet your obligation as an employer if you choose to employ staff directly .
You might want to self-manage only a part of your funding. This can be a good way to develop your skills, and help you self-manage more of your funding in the future if you want to.
How can you learn how to self-manage your funding?
You might want to learn or improve your skills to help you manage your NDIS funding. For example, you might want to build your skills to:
- budget and keep records of your purchases
- choose your supports and get the most out of your plan
- claim your NDIS funding, pay providers, and make service agreements.
You can check out our guide to self-management , and learn more about self-managing and how to claim from your plan on the NDIS website.
If you have enough money available in your Core supports budget, you can use this flexibly to help you learn how to self-manage. For example, you might buy book-keeping services to help with payroll for staff you employ. Or you might buy an online training package to help with things like learning to budget and keeping records.
Or you might buy an online training package to help with things like learning to budget and keeping records.
If you need support to build your skills to manage your funding, we might be able to fund support. If it meets the NDIS funding criteria we can include funding in your plan for capacity building and training in self-management. Talk to your My NDIS Contact about this.
You might use this funding to get your support coordinator or plan manager to help build your skills. You might choose to use the funding on training with another organisation. As you build your capacity in self-managing, you’re likely to need less of this support in the future.
We can also answer questions about self-management and help you problem-solve when you start out.
We’ll talk to you about whether there are any mainstream and community supports which could support you. These are the supports you get outside the NDIS, and are available to everyone, whether or not they have a disability. Supports outside of the NDIS can help you build your skills to manage your own finances and learn about self-management.
You might speak with your informal supports, and other participants who self-manage to learn more about self-management. Community supports can help connect you to important and practical information about self-management. You’ll need to decide if information from outside the NDIS is reliable and if you want to use it.
We know you might be nervous about self-managing funds. We understand making mistakes can be an important part of learning to self-manage, and sometimes things can go wrong. If you have any issues, you can always contact us and we’ll work with you to fix them.
Self-management and NDIS registered providers
If you self-manage your funding or use a registered plan manager, you can generally use any provider. But you must use an NDIS-registered provider if they provide:
- specialist disability accommodation
- behaviour support
- supports where the use of restrictive practices occur or are likely to occur
Sometimes we might also say in your plan which provider you need to use.
A registered provider meets the NDIS quality and safety standards . Workers with registered providers also undergo an NDIS worker screening check to make sure a worker is safe for you to use.
If you choose a provider that isn’t registered, you’ll need to make sure they have the right qualifications, training, and safety checks. You can ask providers, employees or contractors providing you with supports to do an NDIS worker screening check.
Self-management and NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits
If you self-manage your funding, you can agree to pay more or less than the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits. But you always need to make sure you have enough funding in your plan to last for the whole plan period.