Support-worker travel and kilometre evidence: mobile capture to payroll and NDIS billing review

Fair Work distinguishes travel between work locations while on active duty from ordinary travel to and from work. Its guidance also explains that own-vehicle allowance depends on the worker being required and authorised to use that vehicle. Source: Fair Work vehicle and travel entitlements.

The software should therefore let a reviewer distinguish travel between clients, participant transport during support, an authorised personal-vehicle record, parking or toll evidence, and an unpaid break or commute. A single generic travel field hides those boundaries.

The aim is not for an app to make an award interpretation. It is to keep enough source facts and approval history visible for the provider's authorised payroll and finance reviewers to make the decision against current official guidance.

The current NDIS pricing schedule includes Provider travel - non-labour costs support items. The official pricing-arrangements page remains the source for the current schedule and supporting rules. Sources: NDIS Pricing Schedule 2026-27 and NDIS pricing arrangements.

Payroll review asks whether the worker's time, vehicle use, allowance context, award configuration, and timesheet export are ready. NDIS billing review asks whether the delivered support, participant agreement, support item, provider-travel conditions, evidence, and claim pathway are ready. Those reviews can use the same field record while retaining different owners and outcomes.

Effica is a workflow support tool, not the source of SCHADS or NDIS rules. Providers should check the current official documents, their service agreements, and appropriate payroll or claiming advice before money moves.

Fair Work says employers need accurate and complete time and wage records and must issue pay slips. Source: Fair Work record-keeping guidance. A travel record should therefore remain connected to the approved timesheet and any correction rather than disappearing after export.

A useful approval queue shows missing journey context, duplicate or overlapping segments, absent vehicle authorisation, unresolved receipts, changes after worker submission, and the payroll or billing lane still waiting. The reviewer should be able to return the record with a reason instead of editing the worker's evidence invisibly.

After export or claiming, the audit trail should retain the source record, approved values, reviewer, decision time, downstream reference, and correction history. That makes reconciliation and later questions explainable without exposing unnecessary location detail to every user.

Ask whether workers can classify the journey purpose, link it to the right shifts, record authorised vehicle use, add receipt evidence, correct a draft, and understand what location data is captured. Ask whether managers can see conflicts, return records, approve payroll and billing separately, and trace changes after export.

Also check offline behaviour, mobile permissions, branch and participant access, retention, audit history, and how the provider handles a worker who cannot or does not grant location access. A kilometre workflow should degrade to reviewable manual evidence rather than silently blocking shift completion.

Effica is being built to connect mobile evidence with roster, timesheet, payroll, billing, and audit review. The practical next step is to walk through one real travel scenario from worker capture to manager decision and finance reconciliation.