Free Provider Readiness Check

What the Readiness Check is

You are probably not short of documents. What is often missing is an order: which thing to do first, by when, and why that one before the others. The Readiness Check is our answer to that. It lives on the ProviderQMS dashboard as Your readiness plan, asks six short questions about your service, and builds a preparation plan from your answers.

It is deliberately the first of the six setup steps in the workspace. Your scope marks which standards and modules you are read against; the documents have to exist before they can carry your name; and there is no point ranking work before we know what work applies.

The six questions

We ask exactly these, each answered from a short list:

1. Where are you with registration? Applying now as a new provider; registered with a renewal or mid-term audit coming; or registered with no audit date yet.
2. Do you know your audit date? Within 60 days; two to six months away; more than six months away or not set; or applying with no audit date yet.
3. How many SIL houses or settings do you run? None yet; one; two to five; or six or more.
4. How many workers? One to five; six to twenty; or twenty-one or more.
5. Policies and procedures today? None yet; some, of mixed ages; or a full kit, current.
6. Incident, complaint and risk registers? None; some, on paper or spreadsheets; or all, kept up to date.

The check will not build a plan until all six are answered — the questions that size the plan cannot be inferred from the ones you skip. An applicant is never asked to invent an audit date.

What the plan shows

The plan is a numbered list in do-by order. Every step carries four things: what to do, why it comes now, a do-by date, and the area of your system it belongs to — Governance, Workforce, SIL controls or Actions.

Some steps appear for every provider:

• Set your registration scope in Assurance. Mark each standard and module as it applies to your registration: Applies, Not applicable, or Needs review.
• Add every worker with screening and first-aid dates. A blank date is flagged, never assumed fine. The Commission states that an NDIS worker screening check is valid for five years.¹
• Run your review in Assurance before the real audit. Reviewing your controls and evidence against your real state turns surprises into actions while there is time.
• Open a weekly rhythm: Monday priorities, Friday review. Readiness is kept, not achieved.

Other steps appear only when your answers call for them:

• No policies yet? The plan puts loading a document kit into Library right after scope, because the rest of the plan is built on a documented system. Some, of mixed ages? It asks you to review and date every policy and retire the stale ones — an out-of-date document, once sampled, can invite the question of what else is.
• Registers not all current? The plan adds a step to create your incident, complaint and risk registers in the workspace. They start empty, and that is fine: registers show a system operating; a kit shows one exists.
• Running SIL houses? The plan asks for a dated record of your emergency arrangements and of how medication is stored. The Quality Indicators Guidelines ask that emergency arrangements in shared living are coordinated, rehearsed and tailored, and that medication is stored safely and securely and only accessed by appropriately trained workers. Neither names an interval, so we hold the dated record and show how long ago — we do not set a date for you. The Practice Standards Rules now carry a dedicated, outcome-level module for this class of support.²
• Applying now? The plan includes lodging your registration application, because the audit follows from it: the Commission's process has an auditor assess you against the Practice Standards relevant to your application.³

Your audit date sets the pace. Choose "within 60 days" and every do-by date tightens; choose a later date and the same steps spread out.

What you see without a subscription

The Readiness Check lives inside the workspace, and the workspace opens with a key: an active trial or subscription, the receipt from a document kit, or timed preview access issued when you register your work email on the door (registering takes you to the trial page first; the preview is waiting when you come back). Once inside, anyone who answers the six questions sees the shape of the whole plan. In a workspace without a subscription or trial, the first three steps are fully open, with their reasons and do-by dates; the remaining steps are in the list but blurred. The Apply this plan control is shown but locked, with the reason written beside it — we would rather show you a control you cannot press yet than hide it.

With a subscription, and an active free trial counts, every step is open and the same plan applies in one click. Each step becomes a tracked record with an owner, a due date and its area, and Home ranks them for you so the next thing to touch is always at the top. The plan is not emailed to you; it is kept in your browser, and you can answer again at any time. Nothing is charged to see your first three steps.

Why the plan is not a verdict

The Readiness Check tells you what to do next. It does not predict the outcome of an audit, and it never issues a verdict on an organisation, because that judgement is not ours to make. Under the registration process the Commission publishes, your assessment against the NDIS Practice Standards is done through an independent quality audit conducted by an approved quality auditor⁴, and it is the Commission that tells you the outcome of your application.⁵

So the plan itself shows no score: each step carries its do-by date and its area, and nothing more. Apply it and the steps become records; the labels the workspace puts on work are working states, not marks — Past due and Due soon on your queue, Awaiting review on a control in Assurance, Needs attention or On track on an area. There is no readiness meter in the plan. Counts of what needs attention, each with the reason attached, are what you can act on.

Before you answer: have these to hand

• Your current registration status, and whether a renewal or mid-term audit is booked. The Commission describes the mid-term audit as one for providers who first completed a certification audit, falling partway through the registration period.⁶
• Your audit date, if your auditor has set one.
• The number of SIL houses or settings you operate today, if any. If you deliver SIL and have not applied for registration, read the Commission's own words on what happens after 1 October 2026 before you go further.⁷
• A rough head count of your workers.
• An honest read of your policies: none, mixed ages, or a current full set.
• Where your incident, complaint and risk registers live: nowhere yet, on paper or spreadsheets, or kept up to date.

Honesty pays here. Answer "some, mixed ages" if that is true. The plan gets better, not worse.

What ProviderQMS does here

The Readiness Check is the front door to the workspace: six answers become a dated plan, and the plan becomes your queue once applied. We do not issue verdicts on that plan; your auditor and the NDIS Commission do — we keep the record of what you did about it.

Sources

Each numbered line is the document or page a quotation above was taken from, with the date we opened it.

1. Worker screening for registered providers | NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission
   Opened 27 August 2026.“An NDIS worker screening check is valid for 5 years.”
2. National Disability Insurance Scheme (Provider Registration and Practice Standards) Rules 2018, Compilation No. 6, compilation date 1 July 2026, authorised version F2026C00527 registered 02/07/2026
   Opened 27 August 2026.“Schedule 7A—Module 5A: Assistance with supported independent living”
3. Apply for registration | NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission
   Opened 27 August 2026.“During a quality audit an auditor assesses you against the NDIS Practice Standards that are relevant to your application.”
4. The quality audit process | NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission
   Opened 27 August 2026.“This is done through an independent quality audit conducted by an approved quality auditor.”
5. Apply for registration | NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission
   Opened 27 August 2026.“We'll contact you to let you know if your application has been approved or refused.”
6. The quality audit process | NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission
   Opened 27 August 2026.“a mid-term audit is for providers who initially completed a certification audit, and is completed 18 months into your registration period”
7. Mandatory registration and transition pathways for supported independent living (SIL) | NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission
   Opened 27 August 2026.“chose not to apply for registration, you will need to stop providing supported independent living supports”