API & integrations · Article 5 of 6
Claim uploads & extracts
From your team's side, submitting an invoice to the NDIS is a single action. Under the hood, Navigator bundles approved invoices, submits them through the NDIS API, and processes the response. This article walks through what happens.
The full path of a claim
An invoice moves from approved to paid through this sequence:
- Your team approves the invoice (or it auto-approves).
- The invoice waits in the "ready for extract" pool.
- A team member or administrator creates an extract — a batch of ready invoices.
- Navigator submits the extract to the NDIS through the API.
- The NDIS responds: approved, disputed, or rejected (per invoice).
- Navigator updates invoice statuses to match.
- When the NDIS later pays the claim, it sends a remittance advice — Navigator records the payment date against each invoice.
Building an extract
Not every approved invoice gets submitted immediately. Your team decides when to build an extract — grouping a batch of invoices for submission. See Payment extracts for the full workflow.
An extract can be:
- Bank transfer (ABA) — generates a bank file to pay suppliers directly. Only includes suppliers with extract payments on.
- BPAY — for suppliers paid via BPAY.
The NDIS claim submission runs regardless of the payment method — the extract type only affects how suppliers get paid on your side.
Submission to the NDIS
When an extract is submitted, Navigator:
- Prepares payment requests — one per invoice, in the NDIS API's batch format.
- Sends the batch through the Paradox gateway (either PRODA or PACE depending on plan type).
- Receives a response per invoice — the NDIS may approve, dispute, or reject individual invoices within the batch.
- Updates invoice statuses to match. Approved → NDIS Claim Submitted, disputed → NDIS Claim Disputed, rejected → NDIS Claim Rejected.
- Creates tasks for rejections — rejected invoices produce a task with the error details so your team can correct and resubmit.
Your team sees the result of this in the invoice list or on each invoice's detail view. Tasks for rejected or disputed items appear in the queue automatically.
Response handling
The NDIS may return any of three outcomes per invoice:
| Outcome | Meaning | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| NDIS Claim Submitted | Accepted; awaiting NDIS processing | Wait for remittance advice |
| NDIS Claim Disputed | The NDIS has flagged specific issues (e.g. items over the price cap) | Reverse the claim, correct the issue, resubmit |
| NDIS Claim Rejected | Entire claim rejected | Review the error, reverse, correct, resubmit |
See Reversing a rejected claim for the operational steps.
Remittance advice
When the NDIS actually pays a claim, it sends a remittance advice through the PACE API (event REMIT_ADV_GENERATED). Navigator uses this to:
- Record the NDIS payment date on each invoice in the remittance
- Move the invoice to Paid status
- Trigger the remittance advice email to the supplier confirming payment
This only works if the ndis_api_remittance_advice_notification feature is enabled on your account. If it's off, your team records payment dates manually from your bank statement.
When things go wrong
Common issues:
- Bulk process stuck — a batch submission hasn't returned results. The
BulkProcessFinishJobhandles finalisation; if a batch stays "funding requested" for longer than usual, check the NDIS API status. - Rejected for a reason Navigator doesn't surface clearly — the NDIS sometimes returns error codes we don't have friendly translations for yet. Check the task notes for the raw error.
- Remittance advice missing — if you see a claim funded but no payment recorded, the remittance advice event may not have arrived. Check whether the
ndis_api_remittance_advice_notificationfeature is on.
If you're stuck, escalate to your team lead — persistent issues with a specific invoice or batch usually need Kismet to check the raw NDIS response.