Why Bunya
Bunya is an iPhone app that keeps a child's NDIS plan on pace. It tells you what's left, whether you're using it at the right speed, and what a comfortable week looks like. It does this without a spreadsheet, without an account, and without your family's plan ever leaving the phone.
What's the problem?
Most families track a plan one of three ways: a spreadsheet, the portal, or not at all. Each has a catch.
Spreadsheets go stale. They live on a laptop, not in your pocket where the invoice is. Missing one month quietly breaks every number after it. And a spreadsheet cannot tell you whether you're on pace, only what you've typed.
The portal and plan manager statements show what has been claimed and paid. They don't show what you've committed to, what's still owed back to you, or how much room the rest of the plan has.
Not tracking at all is the most common, and the most understandable. It also leads to the outcome families fear least but hit most often.
What does Bunya do about it?
Bunya starts from the plan letter. Scan it, photograph it, or choose the PDF, and the dates, budgets and management types fill in on the phone. Or type them in; it takes about three minutes.
From there, the Home tab does the maths for you:
- Pace. How much of the plan you've used against how much time has passed. Shown as an icon and a label: On track, Room to use more, or A little ahead. Never red, never a telling-off.
- The headline. If you're under pace, Bunya says what could go unused by the plan's end date. That number is the point of the app.
- A weekly figure. What to spend each week to use it all by plan end. It's always worked out from the real dates and always labelled “a guide only”.
- Available right now versus left overall. Newer plans release money in periods. Bunya shows both numbers, and unspent money from an earlier period rolls forward within the plan.
- Owed to you. If you self-manage, every claim you've sent to the NDIA and not yet been paid for is added up in one tile.
Logging is the other half. Tap the plus button, point the camera at an invoice or choose the PDF, and the amount, provider, date and category are read on the phone. Check the summary, tap Looks good, save, and you're done. Bunya warns you if it looks like the same invoice twice.
When the plan review comes round, the Reports screen exports a PDF summary of what was spent per budget and per provider, a CSV of every entry, and a bundle of every receipt. Families are asked to keep records for three years; Bunya keeps them ready.
What is Bunya deliberately not?
- Not an account. There is nothing to sign up for and no password. Open the app and start.
- Not ad-supported. No ads, no ad networks, no tracking.
- Not a cloud service. Your private data never leaves the phone: the plan, every entry and receipt, names, NDIS numbers, dates and amounts. What Bunya does send is anonymous usage and crash reports, so we can see which features get used, fix what breaks and improve the app. Those reports carry counts and event names, never anything you typed, scanned or imported, and they are not linked to you.
- Not an NDIA product. Bunya is independent and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the NDIA. The figures are your own records, not NDIA data. Confirm balances in the my NDIS portal when it matters.
- Not a subscription. The free version is free for good. Bunya Plus is one purchase, yours forever.
- Not financial advice. Bunya shows you your own numbers, plainly. What to do with them is your call.
Who is it for?
Parents and carers managing a child's plan, whether self-managed, plan-managed, or a mix. It works just as well for an adult participant tracking their own plan.
Every budget category can be managed differently, and the entry statuses follow suit. Self-managed entries go Logged, Claimed from NDIA, Reimbursed. Plan-managed entries go Logged, Sent to plan manager, Processed. Agency-managed supports are simply Logged, since there's nothing for you to chase.
Bunya is built to be used with VoiceOver and at large text sizes. Pace is never shown by colour alone.
What's free, and what does Plus add?
If a plan letter funds more than three budgets, the extra ones aren't dropped. They wait, with their amounts intact, until you unlock Plus. The paywall only ever appears when you reach one of those limits, never on first open.