Being able to manage all costs and expenses associated with client care is paramount for many care organisations. These costs include travel expenses incurred by support workers travelling to visits (provider travel) and providing transport during visits (client transport).

To start invoicing clients for provider travel and/or client transport, you must first set up the travel rates. Follow the link below to learn how to set up travel rates:
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After setting up the rates, you will need to set up your membership plans for travel.

If your organisation has existing membership plans, from settings select Membership plans, select the more options menu (▪▪▪) next to the desired plan and then select Edit.

On the plan details page, scroll down to the travel information section. Select whether members on this plan should be charged for provider travel and/or client transport and then select Save.

This will determine whether members on this plan will be invoiced for travel.

After selecting the relevant travel options in the plan details, you will also need to associate the relevant visit services with a client transport rate. This will determine whether the clients can be invoiced for client transport for a particular service.

To associate a client transport rate with a service, select the Client transport tab then select Add client transport to a service.

Select the relevant services that you would like to attach client transport to and then select Save.

For each of your selected services, select Add client transport rates to this service.

Select the relevant rates and then select Save.

To remove any services and/or rates, click on the red rubbish bin on the right.

For more information on how to set up brand-new membership plans, please refer to the guide here:
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Once you have the membership plans set up (you can use one for all members if that suits your organisation), refer to the steps outlined above to set up provider travel and/or client transport on the membership plan.

First select a membership, then under Membership, select Edit Plan.

On the Edit Plan screen, select the relevant plan from the Plan details drop down list and then select Save.

To edit travel information at a per member level (i.e. to deviate from the default membership plan settings), first select a membership, then under Membership, select Edit Plan.

Once on the Edit Plan screen, scroll down to the provider travel and client transport sections. Here, you can toggle on/off invoicing provider travel and client transport as well as set membership specific caps for provider travel. Make your adjustments and then select Save.

You can choose which workers to collect travel information from through Lookout's Helper settings. From the helper settings screen, select Travel. Select the appropriate options under Provider travel and Client transport and then select Save.

To schedule travel time in a worker’s roster, create a visit (exceptional or recurring), fill in all the relevant visit details and select Save.

This will take you to the Visit travel information page. Here, you can enter the estimated travel time which will appear on the worker’s roster. Information entered here will pre-fill provider travel on check-out for workers.

Once membership plans have been setup and added to the relevant members provider travel rates will appear on the travel information page. Select the rate at which you would like to charge provider travel to clients

If a service that has a client transport rate attached to it is selected for a visit, then the client transport rate selector will appear on the travel information page. Select the relevant rate for the visit.

Select Save to schedule the visit.

Travel information provided by workers at checkout can be edited via Punchcards. This form can be assessed by selecting a visit and then selecting Edit Checkout.

You can also edit check-outs from the Punchcards screen which can be assessed via the rostering tab on the sidebar.

To edit travel information, scroll down to the Expenses section. Enter the relevant details and then select Save.

Any variance between what the worker inputs on checkout for provider travel and the expected values will appear on the Punchcards screen.

Travel information will now appear on the Payroll report. To learn more about how to generate a payroll report, please refer to

If you have opted to bill clients for travel, checked out visits with travel information from workers will be automatically invoiced when a billing run is started. To learn more about how billing runs work in Lookout, please refer to

When checking out of a visit, workers will be asked to input provider travel time and distance. If you have assigned an estimated time and distance at visit creation, these values will pre-fill in the worker’s app. Workers can change this value if required before checkout.

If a visit has a service that is associated with client transport, workers will be asked to enter client transport information at checkout.

The caps set on the membership plan only impact what will be invoiced to clients. The full amount that the worker entered on check-out will be reflected on the payroll report.

Example

Lookout fully supports this use case. To ensure that your workers will not be asked for provider travel, under Provider travel rates in settings, just uncheck the toggle “Support workers will be asked for travel time and distance on visit check-out”.

Under Provider travel rates in settings, just ensure that “If collecting travel information, also collect for the first visit of the day” is checked.

To learn more about how to make adjustments before publishing invoices, please refer to:

No, the estimated travel time and distance will need to be manually updated if there are any changes in the worker’s roster.

On the rostering side, the estimated time obtained from Google will use the address from the worker’s previous visit based on the first visit of the schedule rule (i.e. recurring visit). All visits within this schedule rule will have the same travel time and distance. You can update a visit within a schedule rule individually if required.
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At check-out Lookout will perform another Google query based on the address of the worker's previous visit. This will be used to pre-fill the worker's travel information and calculate the variance in punchcards.

Lookout estimates do not include traffic conditions when rostering a new visit as it is too far in the future. However, traffic information is applied when it recalculates the estimate at checkout and when filling vacant visits scheduled for the day.

Can I add Travel and Transport rates for vacant visits?
No, these rates can only be selected when the visit is assigned to a helper.