Customers · Funding columns explained
Funding columns explained
The funding section on a customer's profile shows their NDIS budgets across a row of money columns. This article explains exactly what each column represents, which invoice statuses feed into it, and how the forecast number is calculated.
The funding section at a glance
Each support plan has one or more budgets (Core, Capacity Building, Capital, etc.) and the funding section displays them as rows in a wide table. Each budget shows up with all of these columns:
| Category | Total | Spent | Owing | Allocated | Unallocated | Remaining | Released | Available | Utilisation | Forecast | Forecast end |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core supports | $24,000.00 | $8,420.00 | $3,180.00 | $2,500.00 | $9,900.00 | $12,400.00 | $24,000.00 | $12,400.00 | 48% | −$1,240.00 | 12 Nov |
| Daily activities | $14,000.00 | $5,820.00 | $2,160.00 | $1,200.00 | $4,820.00 | $6,020.00 | $14,000.00 | $6,020.00 | 57% | −$1,240.00 | 12 Nov |
| Social & community | $10,000.00 | $2,600.00 | $1,020.00 | $1,300.00 | $5,080.00 | $6,380.00 | $10,000.00 | $6,380.00 | 36% | $0.00 | |
| Capacity building | $8,500.00 | $1,200.00 | $640.00 | $0.00 | $6,660.00 | $6,660.00 | $8,500.00 | $6,660.00 | 22% | $3,200.00 | |
| Plan total | $32,500.00 | $9,620.00 | $3,820.00 | $2,500.00 | $16,560.00 | $19,060.00 | $32,500.00 | $19,060.00 | 41% | $1,960.00 |
How the columns add up
The four "money buckets" inside Total always sum back to it:
Total = Spent + Owing + Allocated + Unallocated
The two right-hand summary columns combine these:
- Remaining = Allocated + Unallocated (everything not yet spent or pending)
- Available = Released − Spent − Owing (money the customer can actually draw on right now)
For a plan without funding periods where the full amount is released up front, Available equals Remaining. For a plan with funding periods they differ — see Plans with funding periods.
Column reference
One row per column. The "Counts toward" column tells you which invoice statuses (the labels you see on invoice records) feed into that bucket.
| Column | What it means | Counts toward |
|---|---|---|
| Category | The budget name. Group rows (e.g. Core supports) summarise the budgets nested under them. | — |
| Total | The full amount of the budget as released by the NDIS for the plan period. This is the parent number every other column rolls up to. | — |
| Spent | Money that has already been paid out to the supplier. Once the supplier is paid, the line items move from Owing to Spent. | Invoices in Paid status only. (Plus any "initial spend" recorded at migration if the customer joined Navigator mid-plan.) |
| Owing | Money committed to suppliers but not yet paid. Captures everything from "we've received the invoice" through to "the NDIS has paid us, we just haven't paid the supplier yet". | All non-deleted invoices that are not yet Paid — Approval not sent, Pending approval, Approved, NDIS Claim Submitted, NDIS Claim Disputed, NDIS Claim Rejected, NDIS Claim Paid, Refund Requested, Review required, Paused. |
| Allocated | Money earmarked for specific upcoming work — service-agreement allocations, scheduled bookings, or anything else committed in advance but without an invoice yet. | Sum of active allocation amounts (no invoice yet). |
| Unallocated | The truly free pool — not yet spent, not pending, not earmarked. This is what your team has flexibility with. | Total − Spent − Owing − Allocated. |
| Remaining | Convenience column: everything that hasn't been spent or committed via an invoice yet. | Allocated + Unallocated. |
| Released | How much of the total has actually been released so far. For plans without funding periods this is always the full Total. For plans with funding periods it grows step-by-step as each funding period start date passes. | Sum of funding period amounts where the funding period start date is on or before today. |
| Available | What the customer can actually draw on right now — released funds minus what's been spent or committed. | Released − Spent − Owing. |
| Utilisation | Percentage of the budget consumed so far — for at-a-glance pacing checks. | (Spent + Owing) ÷ Total × 100%. |
| Forecast | The projected balance at plan-end if the customer keeps spending at the current daily rate. Negative numbers (in red) mean they're on track to overspend. | See How the forecast is calculated. |
| Forecast end | The date the budget is projected to hit zero at the current spend rate. Only displays when the forecast balance is negative — a signal that funds will run out before plan-end. | (Total − Spent − Owing) ÷ daily-spend-rate, added to today. |
How the forecast is calculated
The forecast is a straight-line projection: Navigator looks at how much the customer has spent so far, divides that by the days that have elapsed since the plan started, and projects that daily rate forward to plan-end.
daily spend = (initial spend + everything invoiced so far) ÷ days elapsed in the planprojected future spend = daily spend × days remaining in the planForecast = Total − initial spend − everything invoiced − projected future spend
"Everything invoiced" means Spent + Owing — anything that has hit the budget, regardless of where the invoice is in its lifecycle. So the forecast already accounts for invoices being processed.
Reading a negative forecast
When the Forecast cell shows a red negative number, it's saying: "if the customer keeps spending at the same rate, by plan-end they will be this far over budget." The Forecast end column then shows the date Navigator expects the budget to hit zero.
It's a projection, not a hard prediction. The actual outcome depends on whether spending continues at the same pace.
Edge cases
- Plan hasn't started yet. No forecast — the column shows the full Total since there's nothing to project from.
- Plan has already ended. No future projection — the column shows the actual closing balance (Total − Spent − Owing).
- Daily spend is zero. Nothing has been invoiced yet — no projection runs and the forecast just reflects the current state.
Plans with funding periods
Some customers have plans where the funding is released in chunks at set dates rather than all at once — each chunk is a funding period. For these plans, the columns behave differently:
| Column | Plan without funding periods | Plan with funding periods |
|---|---|---|
| Released | Always equals Total | Sum of funding periods whose start date is in the past — grows over time |
| Available | Released − Spent − Owing (= Total − Spent − Owing) | Released − Spent − Owing — only counts what's been released, not future funding periods |
| Forecast | Active — projects to plan-end | Not displayed for budgets with funding periods — the forecast logic is conservative and only runs against released funds |
So on a plan with funding periods, "Available" tells you what the customer can spend before the next funding period releases, regardless of how much total funding remains.
Spotting trouble early
The funding section is your daily early-warning system. The signs to watch for:
- Forecast in red — projected to overspend by plan-end. Worth a check on whether the customer's spend pattern has shifted recently.
- Forecast end before plan-end — funds expected to run out before the plan does. Plan a conversation with the customer or contact about pacing.
- Owing growing relative to Spent — invoices are queueing up. Could mean approvals are stalled, or extracts haven't been processed.
- Allocated near or above Total — most of the budget is committed via service agreements or future bookings, leaving little flexibility.
- Utilisation racing ahead of time-elapsed — see the Budget alert thresholds in account settings; Navigator will email the customer/contact automatically when this gets sharp.
For automated notifications when these thresholds are crossed, see the Budget Alert tag in the System tags reference.