Creating & Updating Charge Items

Create, update or clone a Charge Item from Charge Items settings. See the Overview for how items connect to services.

Creating and updating standalone Charge Items requires an Admin role and the corresponding Charge Item permission.

To manage Charge Items, navigate to the Charge Items settings page.

Creating a Charge Item

To create a Charge Item click Add Charge Item at the top right of the Charge Items table.

Importing from the Price Guide

Before you import prices from the Price Guide, you'll need to ensure you have set your Region in Business Settings. If you have not yet done this, you will be prompted to set your Region first.

Select the line item

Select the line item to fill the Charge Item details form.

Manually entering or updating details

For an item outside the NDIS Price Guide, enter the Charge Item details manually.

After selecting a price-guide item, you can customise its price, name and reference. Number and Unit are locked in the import form. Once a Charge Item is saved, its Number and Unit cannot be edited; create a replacement if those are wrong. Claim Type is also fixed on locked variants.

Charge Item Number

This corresponds to the NDIS Price Guide. Unless you are charging for items outside the NDIS, you should not change this number as it may result in your payment request being rejected.

For non-NDIS work, use a clearly non-NDIS number such as PRIVATE_SERVICE and attach it to a 100 - Non-NDIS service. Adding a letter to an NDIS-style number does not necessarily change the support category Astalty derives from its prefix. See Services FAQs.

Charge Item Name

This is the name of the charge that will appear on the PDF invoices. You are free to customise this as you wish.

Default Claim Type

When creating a Charge Item, you should select the Default Claim Type. This means that any time this Charge Item is assigned to a Task, the Claim Type for that charge will be set to the default.

Unit

This corresponds to the NDIS Price Guide unit. Unless you are charging for items outside the NDIS, you should not change this value as it may result in your payment request being rejected.

Price

The price of the Charge Item. You may customise this if you need however it will be prefilled with the price imported from the NDIS price guide.

If the GST Code is P1, enter the price including GST. Astalty works the GST out of the price rather than adding it on top, so a $95.00 price includes $8.64 GST, or $86.36 before GST. The invoice shows the GST in its totals, and the unit price stays $95.00 unless your invoice settings show unit prices GST exclusive.

GST Code

Astalty offers these codes:

Code	Label
P1	GST On Income
P2	GST Free Income
P5	BAS Excluded

The form defaults to P2. Selecting another code requires confirmation before saving. Choose the code appropriate to the service and your tax treatment; a default or preset does not establish eligibility.

Reference

This is a short and unique description of the Charge Item - This is what users will see when selecting the Charge Item in the Task.

Notional unit price

Tick This charge item has a notional unit price of $1.00 for Notional Charge Items, where we need to recalculate the quantity when we process the charge for invoicing. For more on Notional Charge Items see Notional charge items below.

You can tick or untick this at any time, including on a Charge Item you have already saved and used - see Removing the notional unit price.

Priced at a shared rate

Turn on Priced at a shared rate only when the price is already one Participant's share of a group support, such as a price prepared as a 1:2 rate. Astalty then leaves that price alone instead of applying the Group Support's automatic ratio a second time. Leave it off when the Charge Item holds the full service price that still needs to be split.

Changing this setting updates eligible charges that have not yet been invoiced, including charges in a draft Invoice Batch. Ratios set by hand are preserved. Astalty warns before a manual ratio is applied to a shared-rate item because that ratio reduces the already shared price again.

Notional Charge Items

In Astalty, marking a Charge Item as notional uses a $1 unit price and recalculates the quantity to preserve the charge total. A GST-exclusive invoice display can adjust the displayed unit price for a GST-bearing item. For example:

10 units @ $1.50 = $15
When we invoice this becomes 15 units @ $1

Once you have the Notional Charge Item created and setup within a Participant's Service, it can be assigned via the Finance tab within a Task.

Removing the notional unit price

If a Charge Item was marked as notional by mistake, open the Charge Item, untick This charge item has a notional unit price of $1.00 and save.

Once the notional unit price is removed, the Charge Item goes back to its normal unit price and quantity everywhere Astalty produces pricing, including:

PDF invoices
The charges listed on the invoice screen: the N badge next to the unit price disappears
Bulk upload files

Charges you have already invoiced

Unticking the notional unit price is not limited to charges you have not invoiced yet. It also applies to charges sitting on invoices you have already raised.

This is because Astalty does not store the notional unit price against each charge, and it does not keep a saved copy of the invoice PDF. The unit price and quantity are worked out from the Charge Item's current settings each time an invoice or claim file is produced. An invoice you raised before unticking will therefore show the corrected unit price and quantity the next time it is downloaded, emailed or resent. You do not need to void and reissue it.

The invoice total does not change. Only the way the line is expressed changes: a charge invoiced as 15 units @ $1.00 goes back to 10 units @ $1.50, and either way the line is $15.

The copy the Participant or Plan Manager already has is the PDF that was attached to that email, so it still shows the notional figures. Download the invoice again, or resend it, if they need the corrected version.

Items without a price limit

In Astalty, you can charge for items that do not have a price limit. To do this, you should create a Charge Item with the relevant line item and set the price to $1. When using this Charge Item, you would then adjust the quantity to arrive at the desired total.

From the NDIS Price Guide

Check the current NDIS pricing and claiming requirements for the item before using a notional price. Astalty's checkbox controls how quantity and unit price are presented; it does not determine whether the support can be claimed.

For example, a charge worth $530 can be represented as 530 units at $1.00. Confirm the correct item number and claiming treatment separately.

Cloning a Charge Item

If you need a Charge Item that is similar to one you already have, you can clone it instead of re-entering every field.

To clone a Charge Item, click the three-dot menu at the end of its row in the Charge Items table and select Clone.

The Clone Charge Item drawer opens, pre-filled from the original with its Number, Unit, Price, GST Code, Default Claim Type, and Notional unit price setting. The Name and Reference are also carried over, each with (Copy) added to the end. Every Charge Item Reference must be unique, so if that suggested Reference is already in use, including from an earlier clone of the same item, change it before saving the clone.

The price guide Search section isn't shown, so importing a line item can't overwrite the values you're cloning. The manual entry section is titled Details instead of or add details manually.

Once you're happy with it, click Clone. A new Charge Item is created, and the one you copied from is left exactly as it was.

Video Walkthrough

Watch the following video to see a visual guide on how to create and update Charge Items.

Updating Charge Item prices

Open the Charge Item, enter the new Price, then save. When the price changes, previously unlocked charges dated before today in your account's timezone retain the previous rate. Existing today/future charges still using the live price, and newly entered charges, can use the new rate. Use a Unit Price override when backdating requires an earlier rate.