For you if · The finding has landed
You failed an NDIS audit and have corrective actions due
In most cases the practice was happening and the evidence was not. That is worth knowing early, because it changes what you fix. If the underlying work was sound, you are solving a capture problem, not retraining your team.
It also predicts the next audit. A corrective action that adds a manual step will close this finding and reappear as the same finding in three years, because the manual step decays the moment the quarter gets busy.
First, separate the two kinds of finding
- Practice findings, where the thing genuinely was not done. These need process and often staffing changes, and software is irrelevant to them.
- Evidence findings, where it was done and cannot be shown. These are the majority, and they are the ones that recur.
Go through the non-conformities and label each one. The split usually surprises people, and it tells you where the money should go.
Close the corrective actions the boring way
Do not attempt a systems change inside a corrective action window. The deadline is real, the auditor wants the specific gap closed, and a half-finished platform migration is a much worse position than a manual fix that works.
Close them manually, document what you did, and keep the evidence of closure. Then treat the recurrence risk as a separate piece of work with its own timeline.
The corrective action plan asks what you will do differently. If the answer is "the team will now record X in Y", that is accepted, and it is also the same answer that produced this finding. Something has to change structurally, or the finding is deferred rather than fixed.
Then fix the recurrence, not the finding
The question worth asking after the dust settles: what would have had to be true for this to be impossible rather than unlikely? Usually the answer is that the evidence had to be a by-product of the work rather than a separate act someone remembers.
- Obligations with dates derived from events, not typed by a person.
- Attribution captured at the moment of action rather than reconstructed.
- Expiries surfaced before they lapse, on their own schedule.
- Status that can show what it was calculated from.
What a two-week review does here
Maps your specific non-conformities against where the evidence would have to come from, and tells you whether that is a configuration change, a process change, or a build. In a meaningful share of cases the answer is configuration, which is the cheapest outcome and one you will be told plainly.
You keep the build plan, the accuracy baseline and the risk register regardless of whether anything follows.
Common questions
How long do we have to close corrective actions?
It depends on the severity and what your auditor and the Commission set. Treat the timeline as fixed and solve inside it manually, rather than betting a deadline on a systems change.
Will new software fix our non-conformities?
Not the ones already issued. Close those manually. Software addresses whether the same finding recurs at the next audit, which is a different and slower problem.
Can you help with the corrective action plan itself?
The plan is yours and often best done with a compliance consultant who works with auditors daily. Where I help is the layer underneath: making the evidence structural so it stops being a recurring finding.
This guide is general information about how Australian regulatory obligations apply in practice. It is not legal advice, and requirements vary by registration group, jurisdiction and the supports you deliver.