Financial & Prudential Requirements for Aged Care Providers

Insight & News

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission oversees the financial stability of aged care services—both residential and home care—ensuring that obligations around reporting, liquidity, and prudential management are fulfilled under current and forthcoming regulatory standards.

💡 Why Home Care Providers Should Care

Although liquidity and refundable deposit rules primarily target residential providers, home care services benefit by adopting similar best practices. These include precise financial record-keeping, accurate service and fee tracking, and ensuring that sufficient funds are available when a consumer exits the service.

🗓️ Reporting Obligations Explained

Quarterly Financial Reports (QFR)

Who: Required from all approved home care and residential providers—excluding CHSP-only providers
Due Dates (2024–25):
- Q1 (Jul–Sep): 4 Nov 2024
- Q2 (Oct–Dec): 14 Feb 2025
- Q3 (Jan–Mar): 5 May 2025
- Q4 (Apr–Jun): 4 Aug 2025
Content:
- Viability and financial risk assessments
- Year-to-date financial statements at the provider level
- Home care labour costs and hours (regionally tracked)
- Total service hours delivered

Annual Aged Care Financial Report (ACFR)

Due: Annually by 31 October (for financial years ending 30 June)
Includes:
- Detailed income and expenditure (fees, salaries, package funds, etc.)
- Balance sheet, cash flow, and consolidated parent-level segment analysis

🛠️ Tools & Resources Available

Comprehensive QFR templates, data definitions, FAQs, and webinars from the Quality Commission
GPMS user and troubleshooting guides for submitting reports online
Additional technical support via helplines and email addresses for providers

⚖️ What’s Changing in November 2025?

With the introduction of the Aged Care Act 2024 on 1 November 2025, financial and prudential governance will shift to three revamped standards:

Financial & Prudential Management
Investment
Liquidity—applying to most registered providers, including home care providers.

These changes simplify the existing four standards into three more focused ones and extend requirements to include home care providers.

🚨 Emerging Developments: Liquidity Rules & Risks

Initial drafts suggested requiring residential providers to hold up to 35 % of quarterly expenses in cash, plus 10 % of refundable deposits—changes creators warned could reduce investment capacity and hamper service delivery.
Recently, proposals were scaled back, especially for retirement village operators, to only 2 % of refundable deposits, following industry feedback.

✔️ Takeaways for Providers

Stay compliant now by submitting QFRs and ACFRs accurately and on time.
Apply best financial practices like tracking unspent package funds, maintaining cash buffers, and robust reporting.
Prepare for stronger governance under future standards—expect new liquidity and investment frameworks from November 2025.
Monitor evolving guidance and tools from the Commission to adapt to upcoming reforms.

🛡️ How Become a Aged Care Proivder Consulting Can Support You

We guide providers through all aspects of financial compliance—from quarterly and annual report submissions to setting up liquidity planning and governance frameworks for transitions under the Aged Care Act 2024.

Contact us to explore how we can streamline your financial reporting, ensure best-practice record-keeping, and align your systems with forthcoming prudential requirements.

Get in touch with us

Book a Free Consultation

Book an appointment with us to discuss your Aged Care Provider application and compliance requirements.

1800 413 070‬‬

info@becomeaagedcareprovider.com.au

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