If you are doing all of your NDIS admin yourself for your practice, you may be dreaming about delegating some of it to a team member, or outsourcing to a remote admin assistant.
But if it takes you a while to do it yourself, the thought of trying to train someone else to do, it might be a little bit daunting. You may fall back on the thought that it must be quicker if you just do it yourself rather than take time to train someone else up for the job.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but if your intention for your practice is to grow the business, that time you spend on NDIS admin will also grow as your business grows - bogging you down in time-consuming admin tasks. Now is best the time to invest in delegating your NDIS admin tasks, and in this video I will share with you why, along with 3 tips on how to get started.
You might think that it would be quicker to do it yourself rather than train someone else to take over your NDIS admin. However, if it’s still just you doing it EVERY day/week/fortnight… well let’s multiply how many hours you’re spending per week, by 52 weeks in the year.
If you’re planning on growing, the amount of admin grows with it. We’re talking hundreds of hours in the long run! If instead, you invest a bit of time now to get this work off your plate and pass it on to someone else, whether it's a current team member, or outsourced, you can get all those hours back. AND now multiply those hours by the rate you can bill your time out at to clients!
YES, you'll have to train them and work with them to set up a system and a process for how you want it done, and that is a daunting and overwhelming - an investment of time - BUT it will pay off.
In future weeks and months, it will be something that you won't have to worry about anymore and you won't be tied to it any longer. You can get back to doing what you love best in your business.
As an added bonus, if you’re delegating to an admin person, then that is their main focus. They’ll probably get it done in half the time it was taking you in the first place.
3 Tips on How to Get Started with Outsourcing
So, I think we’re convinced of the WHY it needs to happen, here are 3 main things that will help you with the HOW.
Get it out of your head
Get your processes straight, and out of your head and documented so it can be streamlined into a system that you are happy with and can be done efficiently. This can be as easy as screen recording yourself doing the tasks yourself as you do them and explaining what you’re doing as you go. You can use an app like Loom or CloudApp to do this.
Bite-size chunks
If you are training someone yourself, you don’t have to hand over the whole process all at once! You can just show them small pieces of your processes at a time. This way it’s not as overwhelming for you or them. This is something I’ve talked about in more detail in another video: “Getting Started with Outsourcing Doesn't Have to be Hard. Here's How to Make it Easier”.
I’ve experienced this from both sides - delegating and training my team members, and being delegated to through our lovely clients. We often have clients gradually add more tasks for us once we’ve got going with them. For example, when we started out a few years ago for one particular client, they simply had us creating the NDIS Bulk Upload, uploading it and checking the results. Then, gradually over time, we took on the invoicing, then the service bookings, payroll, website updates and some other tasks as well.
Over that time their business grew, and because the owner wasn’t bogged down in the admin, they had time to add more services and contractors, and to grow and train their team. Now that business owner has very little to do with that admin process, even though the amount of claiming and processing has increased a lot.
Save time through experience
Outsource to someone that already has the processes in place!
Outsourcing to someone that already understands the NDIS, Medicare or other schemes you bill through can greatly reduce the work you need to do in handing over, as well as provide you with confidence to know your tasks are in experienced hands. With many experienced businesses such as Positively Sorted, we have also used and are familiar with many different software programs. So even if we haven't used your particular software, we are experienced, fast learners. We know where to look for the tutorials, and how to get our head around new software quickly so we can help you to get what needs doing, done! We can hit the ground running and maybe even suggest better ways of doing things if you are looking to improve your processes.
Look, you might not end up, or even want to be, fully removed from the admin side of your business. However, it will take up a hell-of-a-lot less time in your week if you can offload it to someone else. This time-saving makes it well worth the time investment of a few hours a week now, in order to do that gradual training, that will eventually lead you to saving those hours upon hours every week. Stop letting admin take you away from the more important work in your business - it doesn’t have to be that way!
If you need help figuring out and streamlining your admin process, I highly recommend signing up for our free NDIS claiming cheat sheet. It’s a PDF that has a high level overview of how we run our NDIS admin process for our clients, to help get you on the path to a better workflow. You’ll be able to use it for yourself OR whoever you’re going to get to take it off your plate!
So check out that cheat sheet and let me know in the comments below if you have any questions!!
Check out our blog for more tips to help you Simplify, Outsource and Grow.
