About

Managing SaH and NDIS debtors is particularly important because invoices are generally processed and paid by a third party, such as a Care Provider or NDIS Plan Manager.

A regular debtor-management process helps you:

• Identify invoices that have been outstanding for more than five weeks.
• Follow up missing or unpaid invoices before they become significantly overdue.
• Reconcile outstanding balances with Care Providers and Plan Managers.
• Identify invoices that may not have been received.
• Resend the original Cookaborough invoice when required.

Cookaborough recommends the following debtor-management rhythm:

• Weekly: Review your aged receivables.
• Monthly: Send a statement to Care Providers and Plan Managers with outstanding balances.
• At 5+ weeks: Investigate and follow up unpaid invoices.
• As required: Resend missing Cookaborough invoices.

How to set up your Xero debtor management process

In Xero:

1. Go to Accounting → Reports → Aged Receivables Detail.
2. In the report settings, set:
3. • Ageing periods: 5
     This determines how many ageing columns Xero creates.
   • Ageing period: 1 week/ 7 days
     This determines the length of each ageing period.
4. Select Due Date as the ageing basis. This ensures Xero calculates how long an invoice has been overdue based on its due date.

With these settings, your report should show approximately:

Current | 1 Week | 2 Weeks | 3 Weeks | 4 Weeks | 5+ Weeks

Depending on your Xero report version and settings, the final column may appear as the remaining or older balance rather than being labelled 5+ Weeks.

Tip: Any invoice outstanding for more than five weeks should be investigated and followed up. This does not necessarily mean there is a payment problem. The invoice may be missing, not yet entered into the recipient's system, subject to a query, or simply require follow-up.

Save your report

Once you've configured the report:

1. Select Save as → Custom.
2. Name the report SaH & NDIS – Weekly Aged Receivables.

You can then reopen this report each week as part of your debtor review.

2. Review your debtors weekly

Review your SaH & NDIS – Weekly Aged Receivables report at least once a week.

Pay particular attention to the oldest column and investigate any invoices that have remained unpaid for more than five weeks.

For each overdue invoice, check:

1. Has the Cookaborough invoice been sent?
   Confirm the original Cookaborough invoice was issued to the correct Care Provider or Plan Manager.
2. Has the invoice been received?
   Contact the Care Provider or Plan Manager if necessary to confirm they received it.
3. Is there a query holding up payment?
   Check whether the recipient requires additional information or clarification.
4. Has payment been received but not allocated?
   Check your bank reconciliation and Xero allocations before following up with the recipient.
5. Does the invoice need to be resent?
   If the recipient is missing an invoice, resend the original Cookaborough invoice, rather than the underlying Xero invoice.

3. Send monthly statements

At least once a month, send a statement to each SaH Care Provider or NDIS Plan Manager with an outstanding balance.

The statement is not simply a debt-collection tool. It also provides a regular reconciliation point to make sure the recipient has received all the Cookaborough invoices that appear as outstanding in your accounting records.

This can help you identify missing invoices before they become significantly overdue.

4. Create a separate SaH & NDIS statement in Xero

Xero's standard statement can provide links that allow the recipient to access the underlying Xero invoice.

For SaH and NDIS transactions, the Xero invoice is part of your accounting and debtor-management process. It is not the invoice intended to be provided to the Care Provider or Plan Manager.

The Cookaborough invoice is the version that should be provided to the recipient.

For this reason, create a separate SaH & NDIS Statement and provide it as a PDF rather than giving the recipient access to Xero's online statement or invoices.

Create the statement template

You only need to complete this setup once.

1. Go to Sales → Sales settings → Invoice settings.
2. Select New Branding Theme → Custom .docx.
3. Name the branding theme SaH & NDIS Statement.
4. Download the branding theme and open Statement.docx in Microsoft Word.
5. Keep the statement simple, using the following columns:
   Date | Activity | Reference | Due Date | Invoice Amount | Payments | Balance
6. Leave the Xero merge fields in place:
7. • «InvoiceDate»
   • «Description»
   • «Reference»
   • «DueDate»
   • «Amount»
   • «PaidAmount»
   • «Balance»
8. You don't need to change the «Description» merge field.
9. Save the amended DOCX.
10. Upload it against the SaH & NDIS Statement branding theme.

5. Send monthly statements

At month-end:

1. Review your SaH & NDIS – Weekly Aged Receivables report.
2. Identify Care Providers and NDIS Plan Managers with outstanding balances.
3. Go to Contacts → Customers.
4. Select the relevant recipient.
5. Select Send statements.
6. Choose the appropriate Outstanding Statement and statement date.
7. Select Print PDF.
8. Select SaH & NDIS Statement.
9. Select Download.
10. Check the PDF against Xero before sending it.
11. Confirm the PDF does not provide access to the underlying Xero invoices.
12. Email the PDF statement to the Care Provider or Plan Manager.

Suggested email

Please find attached our monthly statement showing invoices currently outstanding on your account.

This is provided to help ensure you have received all relevant Cookaborough invoices for processing. If you are missing any of the invoices listed, please let us know and we will resend them.

If an invoice is missing, resend the original Cookaborough invoice.

Recommended debtor-management rhythm

Frequency - Action

Weekly - Review SaH & NDIS – Weekly Aged Receivables

Weekly - Investigate and follow up invoices more than 5 weeks outstanding

Monthly - Send statements to Care Providers and Plan Managers with outstanding balances

As required - Resend missing Cookaborough invoices

Ongoing - Reconcile payments and keep debtor balances accurate

Key rules

• Use Xero to manage your debtors.
• Use the Cookaborough invoice as the invoice provided to SaH Care Providers and NDIS Plan Managers.
• Send a PDF Xero statement monthly to help recipients reconcile their account and identify missing invoices.
• Do not provide the underlying Xero invoice.
• Follow up anything that remains unpaid for more than five weeks.

A simple rhythm to follow is:

Review weekly → statement monthly → follow up at 5+ weeks → resend the Cookaborough invoice when required.