Document 14 FOI 25/26-1985 OFFICIAL

The contents of this document are OFFICIAL.

Finalise and approve a budget update with

funding periods

Guidance in this document is not approved for use unless you view it in PACE.

This article provides guidance for a planner delegate, planner (non-partnered area), compensation delegate, external review officer or review officer to:

• know what to consider before finalising the budget update
• review and finalise the budget update
• upload the Plan Conversation Support Tool (PCST) to the case
• check your delegation to approve the budget update
• assign the case for review and approval
• approve the budget update
• generate the updated plan.

Recent updates

15 December 2025

Guidance updated to advise staff to cancel the participant budget update case if it was created as part of a plan continuation.

Before you start

You have:

• understood you can only use this article if the plan change or participant budget update case has a Funding Periods tab. If it doesn’t, you need to use article Finalise and approve a budget update
• read and understood Our Guideline – Changing your plan (external)
• read and understood Our Guideline – Reasonable and necessary supports (external)
• read and understood article Understand milestones in a case

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• read and understood article [Understand provider relationships](https://example.com)
• made changes to a participant’s plan through a plan variation (s47A), Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) order or internal review (s100) decision.

IMPORTANT: if the Participant Budget Update case was created because you accidentally made a decision in a Plan Change case which was part of a plan continuation, you need to cancel it. If you don’t, the plan continuation won’t work.

To check if the case is part of plan continuation:

1. Go to the Details tab and select Parent Case. This will take you to the Plan Change case related to this case.
2. In the Plan Change case, go to the Details tab and confirm the Case Reason is Plan continuation.
3. Go to the Decision tab and confirm the Plan Continuation Confidence option shows. This only shows for cases created as part of a plan continuation.

After you’ve confirmed the case is part of a plan continuation, you’ll need to cancel the Participant Budget Update case.

1. Select Cancel Case.

Because you made a decision in the plan change case, the participant will receive a letter stating their plan will change. You’ll need to contact them to let them know the letter was sent accidentally and their plan will be extended as discussed in the check-in.

What to consider before finalising the budget update

You should complete the budget update as soon as possible after you’ve made any changes to the participant’s plan. If a new funding period starts before you approve any changes, you may need to make additional changes before you can approve the budget update.

When you finalise a budget update, you need to:

• read all available evidence and information relating to the request
• complete the request for service (RFS) case for new or amended support coordination or recovery coach supports. Go to article Request for service overview

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• add a my provider relationship for home and living supports, behaviour support or specialist disability accommodation (SDA). This is so providers can access funding. If the participant doesn’t have a provider yet, ask them to tell us when they do. Then we can add the my provider relationship. Go to article Add or update a provider relationship.

Make sure all the changes you’ve made to funded supports, fund management and funding periods:

• relate to the initial request and overall decision to change the participant’s plan
• meet the participant’s disability-related support needs and will help them pursue their goals.

Review and finalise the budget update

To review the proposed budget in the Participant Budget Update or Plan Change case:

1. Select the Review And Finalise tab.

   Note: you’ll see a warning message if you haven’t completed all mandatory information in the Funded Supports, Fund Management or Funding Periods tabs. You’ll need to complete these tabs before you can continue.

2. Review the Plan Details.

3. Review the Funded Supports summary. Check the Total Plan Funding, the Adjusted Total Plan Funding and the Change in Funding Amount.

4. At Funding Components, check each component and any changes you have made to the Fund Management type and Amount.

   Note: any increase or decrease to the total funded amount of a funding component will be displayed in brackets as a dollar value next to the updated total amount.

5. Select Funding period details under each funding component to check the funding periods.

6. If you need to make changes to fund management, go to article Make a fund management decision.

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7. If more changes to the funded supports or funding periods are required, go to article Action a budget update with funding periods.

Once you have confirmed the proposed budget, continue to Upload the Plan Conversation Support Tool (PCST) to the case.

Upload the Plan Conversation Support Tool (PCST) to the

case

If you’ve used the PCST to help develop the changes to the participant’s plan, you must upload a copy to the plan change or participant budget update case. This is a record of how the budget update was developed.

The PCST must be added as a complete excel workbook. Saving a single excel worksheet or a PDF won’t allow a budget breakdown to be produced if it’s requested.

You need to check you’re on the correct person account and you’re adding the complete PCST document.

1. From the Participant Budget Update or Plan Change case, select the Documents tab.

2. Select Add Documents for the Documents Details window to open.

3. At Please select a Document Category, select Supporting Information.

4. At Please select a Document SubCategory, select General.

5. At Does the document contain any Personal identifiable information (PII)?, select Yes.

6. Provide further information in the Description free text field, then select Next.

7. Select Upload Files.

8. Find and select the file you need to upload, then select Open. All documents in the table should be Ready for upload.

9. Select Save. You should get a success message and the file status should be Uploaded successfully.

   Note: if a document fails to upload, select Retry.

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10. Select Close. You’ll see the document you’ve uploaded on the Documents tab.
11. Check you can open the document, select the link at Document Name. If you can open the document in PACE you must immediately delete all saved copies outside of PACE to protect participant privacy.

If you need to delete a document added in error, go to article Update or delete a document from PACE.

Check your delegation to approve the budget update

To make sure you can approve the budget update, you’ll need to check your level of delegation.

1. You need to use the Instrument of Delegation to determine what plan variation value you can approve. Go to the Delegations and authorisations intranet page.

2. Go to NDIS operations delegations, then select the link to the current Instrument of Delegation.

3. In the Instrument of Delegation, go to section Plan Variation. Review the Description of Power/Function table to determine your Planner Delegate Level.

4. Go to Schedule 3 - Delegations in accordance with financial limits for section 47A variations.

5. At your Planner Delegate Level, check the limit of the dollar amount you can add to the plan before higher delegation is required to approve the budget update.

   Example:

   You’re an APS5 planner. The Plan Variation Description of Power/Function, says you can vary a plan up to Planner Delegate Level 2 in Schedule 3. The table at Schedule 3 in the Instrument of Delegation, says you can approve an increase to the participant’s plan up to $5,000.

6. In the Participant Budget Update or Plan Change case, go to the Funded Supports tab, check the dollar amount at Change in Funding Amount.

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7. If the increase is higher than your level of delegation, continue to Assign the case for review and approval. Otherwise, go section Approve the budget update in this article.

Assign the case for review and approval

If you’ve identified or received an error that says the plan variation value exceeds your delegation, you need to seek approval from the appropriate delegate.

• For Plan Delegate 2 or Plan Delegate 3, these will be approved within your team.
• For Plan Delegate 4, these will be assigned to your local Plan Delegate 4.
• For Plan Delegate 5, these will be assigned to the Technical Advice and Practice Improvement Branch.

Note: your team leader will need to review each case before you assign it for approval.

Assign case to team leader or senior planner

You need a team leader or senior planner (APS6 delegate) to review your budget update before you send it for approval. They’ll review the budget update first and suggest any changes, if needed. You’ll need to assign the plan change case in PACE to your team leader or APS6 delegate.

1. In the top right of a Plan Change case, select Change Case Owner.

2. At Please select if the case owner is a user or a queue, select User from the drop- down list.

3. At Select User, enter the name in the search bar and select the user from the drop- down list.

4. Select Change Owner.

5. Add an Internal Note to the Plan Change case. Go to article [Log an activity or internal note](https://example.com). Use the template below to advise your team leader or APS6 delegate that you’re seeking approval from a higher delegation level:

   Plan Change Type: Plan variation s47A

   Reason for review: Approval or Endorsement

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Approval Level required: Plan Delegate 2, 3, 4 or 5 Identified risks, if any:

Has mandatory TAPIB advice been sought, received and followed? Yes, No or Not Applicable. 6. You’ll need to manually route the case to the specified user for review.

• For Plan Delegate 2 and 3 approvals, the APS6 delegate will assign the case within your team for approval.
• For Plan Delegate 4 and 5 approvals, the APS6 delegate will log an activity with their endorsement and assign the case back to you to progress. Go to section s47A higher delegate approvals in this article.

7. If the APS6 delegate suggests changes before the budget update can be approved, you’ll need to:
   • make changes to the PCST if you used it to develop the changes to the participant’s plan. Go to article [Understand and update the plan conversation support tool](https://example.com)
   • make changes on the Funded Supports, Fund Management and Funding Periods tabs and re-upload the PCST to the case. Go to article Action a budget update with funding periods
   • return to step 1 to request an additional check after the changes have been made.

s47A higher delegate approvals

Once a team leader or APS6 delegate has endorsed the plan variation, you’ll need to assign the case to the correct user or queue for approval.

From the Participant Budget Update case:

1. Select Change Owner next to the current Case Owner. A Change Case Owner pop- up box will appear.
2. At Select New Owner:

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• For Plan Delegate 4 approvals select Users, then enter the delegate’s name in the search bar and select the user from the drop-down list. Select the checkbox next to Send notification email.
• For Plan Delegate 5 approvals select Queues, then select Technical Advice Case (TAB) Routing Queue from the drop-down list.

3. Select Change Owner.

4. Add an Internal Note to the Participant Budget Update case. Go to article [Log an activity or internal note](https://example.com) and use this template:

   Plan Change Type: Plan variation s47A

   Approval Level required: Plan Delegate 4 or Plan Delegate 5 (TAPIB)

   Identified risks, if any:

   Has mandatory TAPIB advice been sought, received and followed? Yes, No or Not Applicable

   Staff member who completed the variation:

   Team Leader who reviewed and endorsed the variation:

5. If the approving delegate suggests changes before the budget update can be approved you’ll need to:

   • make changes to the PCST. Go to article Understand and update the plan conversation support tool
   • change the draft budget and re-upload the PCST to the case. Go to article Action a budget update with funding periods
   • return to Assign the case to team leader or senior planner in this article to request an additional check after the changes have been made.

6. If there are no changes, the higher delegate will approve the budget update and generate the updated plan. Go to the Next steps section of this article.

Approve the budget update

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You can approve the budget update after you:

• consider all evidence and information
• complete the changes in the funded supports, fund management and funding periods tabs
• check your delegation level
• talk with the participant or authorised representative
• review the proposed budget in the review and finalise tab.

To approve the budget update:

1. In the Plan Change or Participant Budget Update case, select the Review And Finalise tab.

   Note: you’ll see a warning message if you haven’t completed all mandatory information in the Funded Supports, Fund Management or Funding Periods tabs.

2. At Acknowledgement, select the checkbox. This confirms you’ve considered all evidence, discussed the updates with the requestor, used and then uploaded the plan conversation support tool (PCST) to the case.

3. Select Approve Plan Changes. The Confirm window will open.

   Note: an approved plan is a delegate decision, it can’t be edited. If the amount you’ve added to the budget is above your level of delegation, you’ll receive an error message. It’ll tell you the delegation level needed to approve the budget update. Go to section Assign the case for review and approval in this article.

4. At Have you reviewed the Decisions and Justification? select Yes.

5. Select Approve. This will return you to the Details tab. If the participant doesn’t have recurring transport or any self-managed funding, go to section Generate the updated plan in this article.

   Note: a notification will be sent to any providers on the Person Account with View Plan authority. To view providers, from the Person Account select the Relationships tab, then select the Providers tab.

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6. If the participant self-manages any funding but doesn’t have bank account details recorded, PACE will automatically either:

   • create an Update Bank Account case
   • link to an existing case if there’s one open.

7. An alert will display on the Review And Finalise tab. It will give you the option to Complete Update Bank Account Case. The Update Bank Account case will remain open until bank account details are added.

   Note: you need to complete this case within 14 days to make sure recurring budget payments can be made. Learn more in articles Before you update bank account details and Add, update or remove bank account details.

You can now generate the varied plan, continue to section Generate the updated plan in this article.

Generate the updated plan

1. From the Plan Change or Participant Budget Update case, select the Review And Finalise tab.

2. Select Generate final plan.

3. Review the participant’s or recipient’s details, then select Next. If you need to update details on the Person Account, go to article [Update a person account](https://example.com).

   Note: you must check that the participant’s Standard Correspondence and Plan Correspondence preferences have the correct accessible format selected. This means the automatic request for these accessible formats will be sent to our external provider when you generate their correspondence in PACE.

4. At Do you want to preview the document before sending it? drop-down list, select Yes.

5. At Select a Recipient for preview, select the participant’s or recipient’s name from the drop-down list.

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6. Select Next.

7. Preview Document will appear and a preview of the plan will generate. Review the plan approval cover letter and the plan for any errors before you select Next. You can also download the document in PDF or Word to review.

8. At Correspondence Confirmation, select Take me to the Previous Options if you want to view another recipient. Repeat from step 4. Otherwise, select Submit Correspondence.

   PACE will send the correspondence to the participant, their nominee or child representative by their preferred contact method. Go to article Check a person’s preferred contact method.

   Note:

   • If the participant has a statutory guardian and the relationship is established with an organisation account, you’ll need to manually send the automatically created Plan Change letter to the statutory guardian. To do this, go to article Send a letter to a statutory guardian or trustee.
   • If this Plan Change case was generated from a cancelled Plan Approval case, the participant will receive the Plan Variation letter.
   • Once you select Submit Correspondence you won’t be able to Generate Final Plan again.

9. A message will appear saying Your correspondence generation process has been initiated.

10. Select Next.

11. A message will appear saying Plan has been generated successfully.

12. Select Close.

13. Once the plan has been generated, the Plan Change case will move to Closed. You may need to refresh your browser.

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Knowledge Article

For Internal Use Only

Note: only use the Cancel Case button in the Participant Budget Update case if you’re not proceeding with the case.

Next steps

Ask the participant or authorised representative if they’d like an implementation meeting to understand the changes to their plan. If they would like an implementation meeting and you’ve completed the budget update, you should complete the meeting. Go to article Create a plan implementation case.

Article labels

PACE user role names

No change.

Topics

No change.

Case names

No change.

Ownership

No change.

Version control

Version	Amended by	Brief Description of Change	Status	Date
2.0	AJG505	Class 2 Approval Updated guidance to include PACE enhancements to the Review And Finalise tab.	APPROVED	2025-06-30
3.0	AHB706	Class 1 Approval	APPROVED	2025-09-01

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Knowledge Article

For Internal Use Only

Version	Amended by	Brief Description of Change	Status	Date
		Updated to guide staff in choosing the right article when a plan does or does not have Funding Periods.
4.0	AHB706	Class 1 approval Guidance updated in section s47A higher delegate approvals so staff know to use the Participant Budget Update case to change the case owner to the relevant user or queue for approval.	APPROVED	2025-09-30
5.0	AHB706	Class 1 Approval Guidance updated to advise staff to cancel the participant budget update case if it was created as part of a plan auto-continuation	APPROVED	2025-12-05

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