Problems
WorkCover Queensland paid less than invoiced
WorkCover Queensland publishes two separate questions about this, one about the invoice and one about the service, because they are different events. A service can be paid at the scheduled maximum fee for its item number, or part of an invoice can go unpaid because a line was not approved. Some of it may be awaiting authorisation. The remittance and the invoice together say which.
Key facts
- The insurer treats this as two questions
- Provider Connect publishes a question about an invoice that was not paid in full and a separate question about a service not paid at the amount charged, which is a sign the two have different causes.1
- What sets the amount paid per service
- A table of costs per service type, listing who can provide the service, the approved item numbers and the scheduled maximum fees payable.3
- What one of those fees looks like
- The allied health fee update for services delivered from 1 July 2026 prints common standard consultation rates of A$137.00 initial and A$108.00 subsequent, where applicable, and a general hourly rate of A$231.00 per hour. The item numbers sit in the tables of costs, which were not read here.4
- Once it is paid it is settled
- The insurer says that once an invoice has been paid it generally cannot be adjusted, so a service paid below the amount charged is a decision to make rather than a correction to wait for.4
- Which fee year applies
- The one in force for the service date. The current allied health fees apply to services delivered from 1 July 2026, and the insurer asks providers to check the service date, item number, descriptor and billing model before submitting.4
- What has to be true before an invoice is paid
- A current Work Capacity Certificate on file covering the date of service, the correct item code and fee, the services approved, and a valid invoice.2
- What a wrong tax amount costs
- The insurer says that where an invoice carries the incorrect GST amount it may ask for the invoice to be re-issued, so the payment restarts rather than arriving short.2
- What the insurer asks a provider not to do
- Resubmit. Where an invoice has been submitted and not paid, the insurer asks the provider to check the payment status in the portal instead.2
- The deadline behind an unpaid invoice
- Invoices go in within two months after the treatment is completed, which the insurer states is a legislative requirement.2
- Where a gap sits in the allied health template
- Account 605, Funder shortfalls and write-offs, carrying the tax type of the original invoice line rather than a fixed Xero code.7
- Where the answer is visible without calling
- The invoice search in the portal, which the insurer says gives enough detail to see whether an invoice has been processed and paid.5
The insurer asks this as two questions, not one
Provider Connect carries a list of provider questions, and two of them sit next to each other. One asks why an invoice was not paid in full. The other asks why a service was not paid at the amount charged. A provider reading them quickly sees one question written twice. An insurer that wrote them both down is telling you there are two causes, and they need opposite entries.
The service level version is a price. The practice charged its own rate, the insurer paid its scheduled maximum for that item number, and the difference is a real supply nobody is going to pay for. The invoice level version is a scope. Some of what was billed was not approved, or was not billable in the form it was sent, so part of the invoice is still open and may still be collectable.
Getting them the wrong way round is expensive in both directions. Write off a line that was only unapproved and the practice gives up money it could still have claimed. Chase a line that met the scheduled maximum and the practice spends an afternoon arguing with a fee table.
Work the invoice, not the deposit
One WorkCover credit in the bank feed usually covers a night of authorised invoices, across several workers and several claims. So a deposit that looks light is not evidence that any invoice was short paid. It is just as likely to be a night with fewer authorisations in it. The unit of work is one invoice against one remittance, and the portal is where both live.
- Confirm the invoice reached the insurer. A practice system reports whether the gateway accepted the upload, and a failed upload is not a payment problem at all.
- Check the billing status in the portal. An invoice still awaiting authorisation has not been paid short. It has not been paid yet.
- Compare the amount paid against the amount charged, service by service, on the invoice rather than on the deposit total.
- Sort what is left into the two the insurer names: a service paid below the amount charged, and part of an invoice not paid at all.
WorkCover Queensland payments in Xero covers the authorisation wait and the nightly disbursement behind step two, so this page assumes it and moves on to the money that did arrive.
A service paid at the scheduled maximum fee
The insurer publishes a table of costs for each kind of service, listing who can provide the service, the approved item numbers and the scheduled maximum fees payable, and says the tables show the maximum fees it can pay. A practice that charges above that maximum for an item is paid the maximum. Nothing was rejected and nothing is in dispute. The claim was valid and the ceiling was lower than the invoice.
This one repeats. If a physiotherapy item came back below the amount charged on one claim, it did the same on every claim that carried that item, because they all met the same ceiling. That makes it worth fixing at the rate card rather than at the ledger, and the fee year is the part practices miss: the current allied health tables apply to services delivered from 1 July 2026, so a service delivered before that date is measured against the previous year's fee whatever the invoice date says.
Part of the invoice was not paid at all
The other version is a scope question, and the insurer publishes its own checklist for it. Before an invoice goes in, a current Work Capacity Certificate has to be on file for the worker covering the date of the services, the correct item code and fee have to be used, the services have to be approved, and the invoice itself has to be valid. Three of those four sit outside the accounts team.
That matters for the entry. What was not approved is refused before payment rather than clawed back afterwards, and the insurer says an invoice generally cannot be adjusted once it has been paid, so the invoice keeps an open balance rather than acquiring a shortfall. Whether that balance is ever collectable is a clinical and contractual question, not a bookkeeping one, and closing it on the day the deposit lands answers it early.
The invoice that came back rather than paid short
There is a third outcome that reads like a short payment in the ledger and is not one. The insurer says that where an invoice carries the incorrect GST amount it may ask for the invoice to be re-issued. Nothing is paid, nothing is refused, and the invoice the practice is holding is no longer the invoice the insurer is working from.
The tax amount on the invoice therefore has consequences beyond the activity statement. What the correct amount is turns on the supply, and GST on WorkCover treatment sets out the tests rather than this page deciding one. What belongs here is the mechanical point: a re-issued invoice is a new document, and leaving the old one open produces a duplicate in the receivables ledger as soon as the replacement is paid.
The deadline that can end the question
The insurer states that invoices must be submitted within two months after the treatment is completed, and describes that time frame as a legislative requirement. An invoice found in a drawer at year end may have no route to payment left, which makes an aged unbilled report worth as much attention on this funder as an aged receivable.
It also changes the order of work. The invoices worth chasing first are the ones still inside the window, because the ones outside it are a write off decision rather than a collection job. That is a different conversation, and it is easier to have once rather than one invoice at a time.
Telling the four apart in one pass
| What happened | Where you see it | What the invoice needs |
|---|---|---|
| The service met the scheduled maximum fee | The service is paid, at less than the amount charged | A part payment, then a decision on the gap |
| Part of the invoice was not approved | Some services paid, others with nothing against them | A part payment. The rest stays open and is chased in the portal |
| The invoice was sent back to be re-issued | No payment, and a request to re-issue | Nothing posted. The replacement invoice carries the balance |
| The rest has not been authorised yet | A billing status in the portal rather than a remittance | Nothing posted. It is not short, it is early |
The entry each cause takes in Xero
The canonical allied health template carries the WorkCover rail with two components and no merchant fee leg. Authorised invoices are receipted to account 108, WorkCover clearing, a bank type account that is BAS excluded because the deposit moves money that was recognised as revenue when the invoice was raised. An approved gap goes to account 605, Funder shortfalls and write-offs.
- Service paid at the scheduled maximum: receipt what was paid on the date the remittance states, then decide the gap. Reconcile a part payment runs the mechanics.
- Part of the invoice unpaid: the same part payment, and the balance left outstanding rather than written off, because it has not been refused on price.
- Invoice to be re-issued: no entry against the old invoice. Replace it, so the receivables ledger holds one document rather than two.
- Still awaiting authorisation: no entry at all, and no exception either. The invoice is where it should be.
Decide the write off once, not per deposit
Whether an approved gap is written off at all is a practice decision with a BAS agent in it, and the canonical template says so rather than settling it. What the template does settle is the tax type: a write off is a partial reversal of the original supply, so it follows the tax type of the line it reverses instead of taking a fixed code. That is a rule rather than a rate, which is why it survives a fee year change.
The standing check is the clearing account itself. Once each night's transfer has been matched and each gap has been dealt with, the balance for that batch returns to nil, so what is left is a line nobody worked. A clearing account that will not clear sorts the leftovers by cause.
What Ledger Map does with a short paid invoice
Ledger Map posts one balanced document set per deposit and leaves one exact match in the bank feed. A service paid below the amount charged is posted as a part payment with the gap held as its own item, an unapproved line is posted as nothing and raised as a question, and an invoice waiting on authorisation stays out of the deposit entirely.
The accounts and the tax rates come from the canonical template the practice starts from, and the practice approves its map before an invoice syncs. Nothing here is a treatment Ledger Map picked. See how it works for the approval step.
Questions
Why haven't I been paid the complete amount for the invoice?
Usually because part of what was billed was not approved rather than because the price was cut. The insurer's own checklist is the place to start: a current Work Capacity Certificate on file covering the date of service, the correct item code and fee, and the services approved. The unpaid part stays open on the invoice rather than being written off.
Why haven't I been paid the full amount for the service I charged for?
That is the other question the insurer publishes, and it is a price rather than a scope. The table of costs sets a scheduled maximum fee per approved item number, and a practice charging above it is paid up to that maximum. The difference is a real supply that will not be collected, so it needs a decision rather than a chase.
How do I tell a short payment from an invoice that is still being paid?
By the billing status rather than by the bank. One WorkCover credit usually covers a night of authorised invoices, so a light deposit on its own says little. Open the invoice in the portal, which the insurer says carries enough detail to see whether it has been processed and paid, and compare the amount paid against the amount charged service by service.
Should I resubmit an invoice that has not been paid?
The insurer asks providers not to. Where an invoice has been submitted and not paid, it asks that the payment status be checked in the portal instead. Sending it again leaves two invoices to reconcile against one payment, which is a longer job than the one it was meant to shorten.
Does the gap get written off?
That is a practice and BAS agent decision, and the canonical allied health template leaves it open rather than settling it. What the template does fix is where a written off gap sits, account 605, Funder shortfalls and write-offs, and that it carries the tax type of the original invoice line rather than a fixed Xero code.
Can a wrong tax amount stop the payment?
The insurer says that where an invoice carries the incorrect GST amount it may ask for the invoice to be re-issued. That is not a short payment, it is a replaced document, so the old invoice is closed out rather than part paid and the replacement carries the balance.
Sources
Open questions
- The Provider Connect answers are not in the document. The page serves its question headings and no answer text, which was still true on 3 Sep 2026, so this page uses the two headings as evidence that the insurer distinguishes the two cases and states nothing about what the answers say.
- No item number sits beside the paid rate. The insurer's allied health fees page returned HTTP 404 on 3 Sep 2026 and the fees index links to documents rather than printing rates, so the tables of costs were not read. The paid line on the plate is the rate the fee update prints for a subsequent standard consultation, and the charged line above it is a worked amount, because a practice's own fee is published nowhere.
- Whether a remittance carries a comment naming the reason for a short payment is reported elsewhere but was not readable on the insurer's own pages, so the page compares the remittance against the invoice rather than naming a comment string.
- Whether an approved gap is written off at all, or left outstanding, is a practice and BAS agent decision. The canonical template holds the account and the tax rule and leaves the decision open, and so does this page.
- No search snapshot was captured for this query. The session cache holds snapshots for other pages in this family and none for this one, so the ranking set, the People also ask questions and any AI overview behind them are unverified. The FAQ pairs below are the insurer's own published question headings instead.
- The bank narration this insurer uses is not published, so the matcher learns the descriptor from the practice's own feed rather than from a fixed string.
- Provider Connect frequently asked questions, the question index
WorkCover Queensland. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 17 Mar 2020.
primary
- Fees and tables of costs
WorkCover Queensland. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 3 Jul 2026.
primary
- Updated allied health fees, effective 1 July 2026
WorkCover Queensland. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 30 Jun 2026.
primary
- GST and health, supply of services through a third party
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
- WorkCover QLD electronic invoicing
Best Practice Software. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 5 Feb 2025.
secondary
- WorkCover Queensland integration
Smartsoft Front Desk. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 19 Jul 2020.
secondary
Review
Last reviewed 3 Sep 2026 by Shane
General information for Australian allied health practices, not tax advice. Confirm a treatment with your BAS agent or accountant before you post it.
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