Support at Home Budget planning

Article contents:
Overview
   > Getting started
Budget planning
   > Onging budgets (SaH 1-8, or transitioned HCP 1-4)
Budget set up
   > Client contributions
   > Other income sources
   > Supplements
   > Service planning
   > Provider travel and client transport
   > Generating a budget from the roster
Bulk generating budgets
Assistive Technology & Home Modifications budgets (AT-HM)
   > AT-HM viability supplements (MMM 6-7)
   > Administration of Assistive Technology
   > Coordination costs for home modifications
Real-time tracking
   > Care Management - 10% allocation
FAQs

Overview

Lookout’s budgeting and live expenditure tracking tools are designed to provide a more comprehensive, end-to-end experience for managing care funding. This tool is a flexible, end-to-end budgeting solution that supports multiple funding models, including HCP, NDIS, private, and custom funding schemes, delivered as a complete package to all users. For more information on the tooling, please refer to our Budget Tooling article.

This guide walks you through how to get started with Support at Home-specific budget planning in Lookout. From setting up the basics to using real-time tracking, we've broken it down into clear, easy steps.

Getting started

Before creating Support at Home budgets, it’s essential to complete a few key setup steps. These will ensure your budgets reflect the correct pricing and structure from day one.

Step 1: Update Membership plans:

Each Member should be mapped to the appropriate Membership plan they correspond to under Support at Home, as this affects which rates should apply (e.g. metro vs regional pricing, self-managed vs care-managed, or maybe you set up different rates per classification level).
The right plan ensures the correct rates are used. For more information, please take a look at our Support at Home Membership plans article.

Step 2: Transition your existing home care services:

Ensure that all current HCP visits, services, and purchase orders are mapped to the new Support at Home service codes and pricing. These new rates will apply starting 1 November.
If you need help with this, please take a look at our 10-step Roadmap for support articles and pre-recorded webinars to help with this step.

 

Budget planning

A commonly asked question is whether you only need to make one budget per Member. You’ll need to set up multiple budgets if the Member is receiving multiple funding allocations.

If a Member is receiving funding from multiple sources (e.g. ongoing care, assistive tech, home modifications), you’ll need to set up a separate budget for each funding type. When setting up a budget, you’ll choose a type from the ‘Classification’ dropdown, such as:

• Ongoing (Quarterly)
• Restorative Care
• End-of-Life
• Assistive Technology
• Home Modifications

These budgets serve different purposes and must be tracked separately.

You can, however, have multiple budgets active at the same time. For example, a Member can have an Ongoing, Restorative Care, and Assistive Technology budget running simultaneously. This enables you to allocate services effectively across each funding stream and track expenditures. It also gives a clear view of how each funding stream is used.

 

Ongoing budgets (SaH 1-8, or transitioned HCP 1-4)

From 1 November, Lookout will automatically import customer data from the Aged Care Provider Portal (ACPP) to help populate key details in the Income tab. This includes:

• Client classification (Support at Home level) and subsidy amount
• Contribution percentages
• Available Commonwealth unspent funds (including HCA account balance)
• Any eligible supplements

Until then, funding details for transitioned HCP Members will be based on estimates. Client contributions will not be automatically populated. You can manually add these using the Support at Home Estimated Contribution Rates (available in the Aged Care Provider Portal). The portal allows you to download these estimates in a CSV. You can input these amounts manually into your customer’s budgets for approval prior to 1 November.

From 1 November, budgets will pull through the actual data, including actual contribution rates, subsidies, and supplements.

 

Budget set up

To set up a budget, navigate to the Care section in the main side menu and then select Members. 

You can use the search filters to help you find a member or scroll through the list. Once you have found who you are looking for, click their name to enter their dashboard. You will now also see a column in the memberships list called budget status. This is to help give you quick easy information at a glance. 

Click the Budgets tab across the top of the member's profile.

This will bring up a new screen, the main Budgets page. The screen will load with the member's real-time tracking by default.   

• If a budget has already been set up and is active, the live tracking will compare expenditure against that existing budget. 
• If no budget has been set up, it will only detail current expenditure, and in the case of HCP/Support at Home, it will also detail their available income (subsidies,  supplements and contributions).

On the top right-hand side of the screen, click the ‘Service planning’ tab. 

A new screen will load, showing a summary of all active and archived service plans (if any). To create a new budget, click the blue ‘New budget’ button on the right-hand side of the screen. 

A new screen will load with three tabs across the top: Income, Service Planning, and Summary. The ‘Other expenses’ tab is only visible for HCP, NDIS, Private, and Custom funding budgets; it will be hidden when creating a Support at Home budget plan.

On the left-hand side, you can select the funding scheme and funding level, set the start and end date for the budget, and see a chart that visualises how the available income is being allocated.

Select Support at Home as the funding scheme, and then select the classification level you wish to create a budget for.

As you build the budget, the chart updates to show the total income, planned expenses, and remaining funds, making it easy to see how well your plan is tracking against the available funding. 

Now let’s take a look at the Income section. When you set up an ongoing quarterly Support at Home or transitioned HCP budget, you’ll see a bar chart visualisation that breaks down the Member’s subsidy amount, minus the 10% automatically allocated to the Care Management pool.

This allocation links to the Care Management service (SERV-0018), and you can track usage against this 10% allocation in the ‘Real-time tracking’ tab:

 

Client contributions

Just below the income section of the budget, you’ll find the fields for entering the Member’s required and voluntary contributions.

The required client contributions are the mandatory payments determined by Services Australia based on the client’s income assessment. They represent the portion of service costs that are not fully subsidised. For example, if a service costs $100 and the government subsidy covers 80% of the service cost, the client is required to contribute the remaining 20% ($20). In most cases, the percentages will be pre-filled based on the Member’s funding details in their Membership, which are kept up to date through the Aged Care Provider Portal (ACPP). If something changes, or if the information needs to be updated for any reason, you can manually adjust or override the pre-filled values.

In addition to the required amount, you can also enter additional private contributions as additional income available to spend. These are extra payments the Member chooses to make to top up their budget beyond what the government provides. This is a helpful option if the Member wants access to additional services or a higher level of support than their budget allows for.

You’ll also notice a field for clinical supports contributions, but this will always be set to 0% and can’t be changed. This is a fixed setting and doesn’t require any action.

It's important to note that until 1 November 2025, client contributions won't automatically appear in the budget. During this time, you’ll need to enter them manually using the Support at Home Estimated Contribution Rates, which can be downloaded as a CSV file from the Aged Care Provider Portal.

Once we hit 1 November, things become a lot easier. Contribution details will automatically populate from the ACPP whenever you create or generate a new budget. However, keep in mind that any budgets you made before that date won’t be updated retroactively. If you want them to reflect the latest data, you’ll need to update them manually or create a new budget.

This setup ensures that you always have an accurate picture of the Member’s contribution amounts and total budget, while also providing flexibility when needed.

 

Other income sources

When setting up a new budget for the quarter, you may need to include a carryover amount. If there were unspent funds from the previous quarter, enter either 10% of that amount or $1,000, whichever is higher. This helps ensure the Member’s full available funding is carried forward correctly.

Some transitioned HCP Members may also have access to Commonwealth unspent funds. These funds are available if their regular budgets, such as ongoing, restorative care, or end-of-life care, run out. However, if the Member has funding needs related to Assistive Technology or Home Modifications (AT-HM), these unspent funds must be used first.

Commonwealth unspent funds are calculated by combining any provider-held funds with balances held by the government (such as the Home Care Account). Although these are added together in the budget plan, the system draws from them in order when claiming: it uses Commonwealth unspent funds first, then moves on to the Home Care Account once those funds are exhausted.

 

Supplements

Under Support at Home, the following supplements are available:

• Oxygen supplement
• Enteral feeding -bolus & non-bolus
• Veteran’s supplement

And the following supplements are grandfathered for transitioned HCP Members:

• Dementia & cognition
• Viability supplement

 

Service planning

Once the income details are entered, you can move on to the Service Planning tab, where you’ll calculate the cost of the care and support planned for the Member.

There are two ways to add a service plan. The first is to add it manually by clicking the blue ‘Add a service’ button. This will open a side window where you can quickly set up a recurring or one-off service pattern.

For example, you might set up ' Assistance with self-care and activities of daily living (SERV-0020)’ recurring every week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

The system will automatically apply the rate variants you've set up, including public holidays or weekends, and you can choose whether these form part of the service plan.

Budget tracking occurs in real-time, allowing you to instantly see how much funding a Member has used and what remains.

Provider travel and client transport

Provider travel and client transport cannot be added separately to a Support at Home service.

If the activity involves a support worker accompanying the Member (for example, going shopping or attending an appointment), the cost of transport should be included in the service rate when you first set up your pricing.

If the Helper is only providing transport (and not accompanying the Member), you can instead select the “Direct Transport” service.

In most cases, your initial rate setup should already account for travel costs, so no additional line items are needed when adding the service to a Member’s budget.

 

Generating a budget from the roster

The second way is to generate a budget from the roster. This fast-tracks the process by creating a draft plan from what’s already in the member’s roster. This is great for Members with a stable service history but make sure to review and adjust. Your roster may not align perfectly with the fund usage and could result in over/under spend if left unchecked. Click the Build from roster button to use this method.

Once you have finished inputting income (if applicable), the service plan and other expenses, you can click the Summary tab to review.

When happy, click the blue Create plan button on the right-hand side.

A green confirmation box will pop-up to confirm your new plan has been created.

To get back to view the Member’s service plans, click the Budgets tab again, then the Service planning button. This will bring you back to the screen that shows a summary of all active and archived service plans.

The new plan we just made has a status set to Draft. You will also see a column advising if a signature has been completed.

 

Bulk generating budgets

Before using the bulk generation tool, it’s essential to ensure that a few key settings are configured correctly. First, all existing HCP visits, services, and purchase orders should be mapped to their correct Support at Home service codes and rates first. You’ll also need to ensure that each Member has been assigned to the correct Membership plan, as this determines the applicable rates, such as regional versus metro pricing or care-managed versus self-managed.

Once everything is ready, you can bulk generate the first quarter of Support at Home budgets, covering the period from 1 November - 31 December 2025. The system will automatically generate the correct budget type based on the Member's membership:

For HCP Members (as long as 1 November onwards is selected), a Support at Home budget will be generated.

Assistive Technology & Home Modifications budgets (AT-HM)

If a Member has allocated AT-HM funding - either low, medium, or high tier - you can create a new budget for that funding stream. Select 'Support at Home’ as the funding scheme and choose the appropriate classification that matches their tier (e.g., AT low, HM medium, etc.).

For HCP Members who don’t have AT-HM funding but do have Commonwealth unspent funds, you should create a budget using the AT-HM Zero Funding Tier. This allows you to use their unspent funds for AT or HM needs, as these funds must be used first before any formal AT-HM funding can be accessed.

Once the unspent funds run out, the Member will need an AT-HM assessment to determine what level of funding they’re eligible for. A new budget can then be created based on their assessed tier.

 

AT-HM viability supplements (MMM 6–7)

For Members residing in remote areas (MMM 6–7), an AT-HM supplement may be applicable. This is added automatically through our integration with Services Australia, based on the Member’s address and aged care assessment. The supplement increases the total available funding for AT or HM and is drawn down along with the rest of the budget.

 

Administration of Assistive Technology

Some tasks related to delivering assistive technology aren’t covered under care management. For these, you can include a separate administration fee in the AT budget. These fees must be:

• No more than 10%of the item or bundle cost, or
• Up to $500. Whichever is lower.

To include this, add a wraparound service marked as ‘administration’ (e.g. WRAP-00#) to the budget.

 

Coordination costs for home modifications

For home mods, you can include a coordination fee to cover provider planning and oversight. You can charge up to 15% of the quoted home modification cost, or up to $1,500, whichever is lower.

Like admin fees, these can be added as a wraparound service labelled “coordination (e.g WRAP-00#) in the budget.

For full details, check the official AT-HM Scheme Guidelines (PDF)

 

Real-time tracking

Care Management - 10% allocation

In the Real-time Tracking tab, you’ll see a card labelled "Care management – 10% allocation." This shows the portion of a Member’s subsidy that’s been automatically set aside for Care Management.

For all Support at Home (Level 1–8) and transitioned HCP Members (Level 1–4), 10% of their ongoing quarterly subsidy is allocated to a shared Care Management pool. This card helps you track whether the Member is under or over their portion of that pooled funding.

It’s worth noting that this 10% amount isn’t included in the total spend shown in the summary at the top of the screen — it’s tracked separately, so you can monitor how Care Management funding is being used without it affecting the rest of the budget.

 

FAQs

Q: How do I create a budget for waitlisted Members with interim funding?

Answer: When a Member is receiving interim funding, their budget will show less than the full subsidy amount for their classification, for example, only 60% of the usual funding when porting the data from the ACPP. Although this is interim funding, the system doesn’t label it as such. Instead, it appears as a standard ongoing budget, just with a reduced income amount.

As the Aged Care Provider Portal updates,  Real-time Tracking will reflect the latest subsidy data. When the Member is approved for full funding, the remaining amount (e.g. the extra 40%) will be automatically added to their available income during the quarter.

You don’t need to do anything right away, but you can choose to either edit the existing budget to reflect the change or create a new one if you’d prefer to show the full allocation clearly.

 

Q: Do I have to manually create or generate ongoing budgets every quarter for SaH Members?

Answer: For the moment, yes. We’ve promised in the forums a way to make it so the budget continues ongoing, so you don’t need to worry about this administrative overhead every quarter for all of your Support at Home Members.

This functionality is still to be developed and has not yet been released. In the future, ongoing budgets will allow service allocations from one quarter to carry over automatically into future quarters. The system will update income details to reflect any changes in subsidies, supplements, or client contributions between quarters, while also respecting the carryover logic.

This means you won’t need to manually create or bulk generate budgets every quarter for each Member if their service plan remains the same. New budgets will only be required if there are changes to the Member’s needs or service plan, which will then need adjustment or the creation of a new budget, and Member approval. We will provide updates as this functionality becomes available.

 

Q: Will Lookout notify me when a Member is under or over-utilising their budget?

Answer: This functionality is coming. The team plans to develop a panel on the Care Managers’ dashboard that will indicate if any Members are over or under-utilising their budgets.

In the meantime, you can make full use of the analytics dashboards. For more information, view our Support at Home transition dashboard article.

 

Q: Why don’t the budget service plans adjust when I add services to the roster, or when a Member’s contribution percentage or subsidy changes, etc after creating one?

Answer: Budget service plans reflect the details at the time they were created and saved. They are not dynamic, and this is intentional - they represent what was generated at that point in time: the funding they’ll receive, the services allocated, and the agreed hourly rates for that specific period of time.

If the budget plan automatically updated with every roster change or contribution adjustment, it would create a “moving goal post”, making it unclear whether you’re compliant with what was agreed.

If a Member’s circumstances change, you should modify the existing budget or create a new one to accurately reflect the updated plan.

However, the real-time tracking area is dynamic. It updates income based on changes in subsidies or supplements from the Aged Care Provider Portal and shows how you’re tracking against the original service plan allocations from the budget plans. For example, if the budget plan allocated $500 for Service A, the real-time tracking will show whether you are under or over that allocation for the period. This is how you’re able to determine your overall funding utilisation from an operational perspective as things change.

 

Q: I want to see how funds are tracking against each funding source (e.g. ongoing budget vs. Commonwealth unspent funds). How can I do this?

Answer: We plan to provide more granular detail in the real-time tracking area in the future. Currently, all available funding is aggregated into a single value as ‘total income’, showing the total income available to spend across all sources. You can otherwise navigate to the Member’s ‘Finances’ tab and go to ‘Accounts’ to see the balances of their subsidy & supplement account, their Commonwealth unspent funds, and their client contribution account after 1 November.