Accommodation Balance Reporting

Providers must report each resident's refundable accommodation balance (RAD or RAC) to Services Australia every month, as required by the Aged Care Act 2024. The balance is reported as at the last day of the claim month. Maica reports these balances from the monthly Claim Batch, drawing on the deposit position tracked on each resident's lump sum account.

This article explains the Accommodation Balance record, the fields it carries, and the submission, correction and deletion workflow as it is built. It is written for administrators and power users.

The lump sum account and its transactions are the provider's internal financial ledger. The accommodation balance submission is the external monthly report to Services Australia. To understand the ledger side, see The Lump Sum Account Model.

Why balances are reported

Accommodation balance reporting is a monthly reporting action, not a real-time or per-transaction one. The balance movements that occur during the month (a deposit, a top-up, a drawdown, a refund) are tracked internally as lump sum transactions. The accommodation balance submission is a separate, deliberate month-end step that communicates the closing balance position to Services Australia.

The Accommodation Balance record

Each monthly balance report is held as an Accommodation Balance record (Accommodation_Balance__c). A record links to the resident's lump sum account and to the claim batch for the month, and captures both what was reported and how Services Australia received it.

Field	API name	Description
Lump Sum Account	Lump_Sum_Account__c	The resident's lump sum account (RAD or RAC) this balance report relates to
Claim Batch	Claim_Batch__c	The monthly claim batch this balance was submitted as part of
Balance Type	Accommodation_Balance_Type__c	The accommodation arrangement being reported (see values below)
Balance Amount	Accommodation_Balance_Amount__c	The RAD or RAC balance as at the effective date, as submitted to Services Australia
Balance Reason	Accommodation_Balance_Reason__c	The reason describing the main balance movement this month (see values below)
Effective Date	Effective_Date__c	The date the balance is reported as at: the last day of the claim month, or the departure date for a resident who left during the month
Response Status	Response_Status__c	The status returned by Services Australia for the submission
Accommodation Balance ID	Accommodation_Balance_ID__c	The identifier Services Australia assigns to the submission, required for any later correction or deletion
Aged Care ETag	Aged_Care_ETAG__c	The concurrency token returned with the last response, sent back as the if-match header on a correction or deletion
Submitted At	Submitted_At__c	When the balance was submitted
Error Message	Error_Message__c	The error detail returned by Services Australia when a submission fails, so it can be resolved before resubmitting

Balance Type values

Value	Label	Meaning
RAD	RAD	Refundable Accommodation Deposit
RAC	RAC	Refundable Accommodation Contribution
NOT_NEEDED	Not Needed	No balance applies for the resident
NO_DEPOSIT	No Deposit	No lump sum was paid
UNDECIDED	Undecided	The resident is still within their accommodation payment choice period

Balance Reason values

Value	Label	Meaning
Regular drawdown	Regular Drawdown	A routine drawdown against the balance
PAID_IN	Paid In	A payment was received
TOP_UP	Top Up	The resident topped up their balance
PART_REF	Partial Refund	A partial refund was made
FULL_REF	Full Refund	The balance was fully refunded
NO_CHG	No Change	No movement this month
ERR_LAST	Error Last	A correction to a previous submission that was in error

Services Australia response status

Unlike the event APIs, an accommodation balance has only two Services Australia outcomes, held in Response Status:

Response Status	Meaning
Accepted	Services Australia has acknowledged the submission
Deleted	The submission has been removed from Services Australia's system

There is no held or superseded state for accommodation balances. For the event status model that does use those states, see Integration Architecture and Event Lifecycle.

Submitting balances for the month

Balances are submitted from the monthly Claim Batch using the accommodation balance submission action. The action opens a modal that previews the residents for the claim month, grouped by what can be done with each, and then submits the eligible balances one at a time.

The submission preview

When the modal opens, it groups the month's residents into four lists so you can see the position before submitting anything:

Group	What it contains
Eligible	Balances ready to submit to Services Australia
Submitted	Balances already submitted for this claim month
Deleted	Balances that have been deleted at Services Australia
Cannot submit	Residents that cannot be submitted, with the reason shown

Running the submission

Selecting submit sends each eligible balance to Services Australia one at a time, showing progress as it works through the list. Each balance is created at Services Australia through the accommodation balance API, and the response (including the assigned balance ID and ETag) is written back onto the Accommodation Balance record.

• If every balance succeeds, the modal reports success for the full count.

• If some fail, the modal reports how many failed so you can review the errors and retry. A failed balance records its Error Message, and the rest of the batch still completes.

A resident who already has a submission for the month appears under Submitted, not Eligible, so re-running the action does not submit the same resident twice. Attempting to submit an already-submitted balance directly returns a message directing you to use Correct instead.

The Claim Batch submission stamp

When the submission action finishes, it stamps the Claim Batch so the month's progress is visible on the record:

Field	API name	Values
Balance Submission Status	Acc_Balance_Submission_Status__c	Complete (all balances submitted successfully) or Failed (one or more failed)
Balance Submitted At	Acc_Balance_Submitted_At__c	The time the submission action last ran

Correcting and deleting a submitted balance

Once a balance has been submitted, the modal offers per-resident actions to keep it aligned with Services Australia:

• Sync re-reads the balance from Services Australia and refreshes the Maica record.

• Correct opens a modal to submit a corrected balance, replacing the value held at Services Australia.

• Delete removes the submission at Services Australia.

Corrections and deletions are concurrency-protected. Both send the stored ETag in the if-match header, and Maica re-fetches the current balance from Services Australia first so the change is never applied against a stale version. If the balance changed at Services Australia since Maica last read it, the ETag no longer matches and the change is refused.

The unsubmitted-balance check

Services Australia can report which residents it considers to be missing a balance submission for the claim month. Maica includes the integration primitive for this check (scoped by the 10-character Services Australia Service ID on the Location).