Quarterly Financial Report (QFR): Overview of submitting your QFR on the Government Provider Management System (GPMS)

This overview supports aged care providers to submit and manage their QFR by: accessing financial reporting in the GPMS portal; completing sections of the QFR form for the current quarter report submissions; and accessing a reissued QFR.

00:08:15

Hello and welcome to the new Quarterly Financial Report application.  

In this video, I’m going to show you how to access the QFR and provide an overview of the application and some of the new features. 

Let's get started. 

You can access the QFR through the Government Provider Management System.  

You will need your Organisation Administrator to assign you a financial reporting user role to be able to access the QFR.  

User guides available on the department’s website have information on assigning user roles and logging into GPMS for the first time.  

Once your access is updated and you have logged into GPMS, the GPMS dashboard will display the Financial Reporting tile – clicking it will open the QFR application.  

When you open the QFR application, you'll see the QFR landing page. 

Here, you'll find three tabs that provide important information and resources. 

Let's start with the 'What's new' tab.  

Information here is updated each quarter, keeping you informed on any updates to the QFR.  

Next, we have the 'Reporting due dates' tab. This tab is essential for knowing when your report submissions are due. 

Lastly, we have the 'Guides and FAQs' tab.  

Selecting any of the QFR resources here will take you to the department’s website.  

This is where you can find additional guidance including written user guides and videos. Keep checking back, as supporting materials will be progressively updated.  

When the next submission period opens your QFR will be visible. When you are ready to begin click on the 'Start' button. 

For this video we’re going to show you a Home Care and Residential Care Service Provider.  

Your QFR is customised to the relevant services you offer.  

If you start your submission and need to pause, simply click the 'Save and close' button. 

You can close the form knowing that your data is saved, and you can return to complete your submission. 

You can also download a copy of your submission at any time – even if it’s in draft by selecting the ‘Download a copy’ button.  

Let’s have a look at the different sections of the form. 

There are a couple of ways to work through the report, you can complete each section in succession, using the ‘Next’ and ‘Previous’ buttons located at the bottom of each section. 

Another way to navigate the form is by using the side bar displayed on the left.   

Clicking on a section title opens that part of the form, allowing you to complete the report in any order that suits you. 

The side bar will track your progress by displaying different coloured icons. 

A red cross will prevent you from submitting your report. It might be because a data field is blank and requires a response or entered data requires additional explanation. I’ll show you how to quickly identify a missing field in moment.  

The 'Before you start' section is the first section displayed, giving you an overview of the information to be submitted for different service types.  

The 'Contacts section' is where you can review and update your contact details for the respective quarters submission. 

It is mandatory to have one primary contact listed so they can receive communications from the department.  

You also have the option of adding secondary contacts.   

You have the opportunity to add contacts for applicable services including 'Home care', 'Residential care' and 'Food and nutrition'. 

It's important to note that these secondary contacts are entirely optional. Adding them can be beneficial, so they can also receive communications. To add a secondary contact, simply fill in the required fields.  

Your contact details can be updated each quarter if needed.  

We’ve made some updates to the 'Viability and prudential compliance questions' section.  

If you answer 'yes' to questions you'll find free text boxes where you can input detailed responses to the questions asked.  

You can now adjust the text box size to accommodate your answer, click and drag the corner to make it larger or smaller, ensuring you have enough space to provide a comprehensive response.  

For some questions, a 'Yes' response may trigger additional questions that you'll need to respond to.  

In these next sections of the form, you will see there are more options to customise the view of your QFR.  

When you enter financial information on the data tables found on the 'Year to date financial statement', 'Labour costs and hours', and 'Food and nutrition' sections, you can choose to bulk upload your data using an Excel template, or enter data directly into the online form.  

Using the Excel template can save you time and ensure accuracy. It’s important to download a new template for each section. If you re-use a previous template, the system will not upload the file.  

The second option is to input your financial data directly into the online form. This provides more flexibility if you prefer to work directly within the portal. When you choose this option, you’ll see fields where you can enter the required financial information. 

You can make the table larger by selecting the expand view option. This allows you to see more rows and columns, this is particularly helpful if you have a number of services or aged care planning regions.  

You can use the navigation buttons at the top of the table to jump to sections within the page or columns to quickly navigate through the table. 

You can choose to use either method, depending on your processes and needs, across any of the remaining QFR data entry sections. 

On the 'Year to date financial statement' section, you have the option of hiding services that aren’t applicable.  

Select the toggle button and confirm your decision. If you’ve entered data in this segment, toggling will update all the values to zero.  

As you enter data, or after you have bulk uploaded data, built-in validations will check for common completeness and accuracy errors in your submission.  

Some validations will prompt you to amend the entered value or provide an explanation while others will require you to correct your response before you can proceed.  

You will be alerted to these by the ‘Why?’ icon.  

Once you have completed all sections of the report, you will be able to complete the declaration and submit your QFR.  

The first step is to download the declaration, it’s important to download the new template for each submission. If you re-use a previous declaration, your QFR will be rejected, and you will be asked to resubmit.  

This template is to be signed by the appropriate signatory, confirming the accuracy and authenticity of the financial data.  

After completing the declaration, upload it back using the 'Upload file' button, or drop the file on the box, to submit the signed form.  

You may need to wait a few moments, while the file is scanned for viruses, before you can submit your report. 

Once you have submitted your report, you have the option of downloading a copy to save for your records.  

That will bring us back to the QFR landing page – as you can see the status of your QFR has changed from ‘Draft’ to ‘Submitted’.  

If you wish to make any changes, you can contact the Forms Administration Helpdesk to request it to be re-opened. 

On behalf of the department, Forms Administration complete quality assurance checks and may reissue your QFR to you if there are queries.  

If your QFR is reissued, you will receive an email prompting you to return to the application.  

The status of the QFR will now say ‘Reissued’ and when opened you can now see the quality assessor’s comments in the form, highlighting items that require a response before you resubmit your report. 

Residential providers may also be emailed additional queries from the department specifically about their labour costs and hours data. You can either respond to these queries or have your QFR reissued to amend your data. 

When you are finished, you can log out by selecting your user ID and choosing 'Sign out'. 

Thank you for watching, we will be progressively adding additional resources, including a number of videos with more detailed explanations of what you have seen today on the department's QFR webpage to assist you with your QFR submission. 

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