The Challenge
Sunrise Community Care had been operating for six years, growing steadily from a small team of four to a provider supporting 85 participants across Western Sydney. But growth had come with a cost: the team was drowning in paperwork. Rostering was done in Excel, service agreements were tracked in a shared Google Sheet, and progress notes were written on paper and then transcribed at the end of each week.
“We had three admin staff spending most of their time just moving data from one place to another,” says operations manager Priya T. “Nothing was connected. If a support worker called in sick, updating the roster, notifying the participant, and finding a replacement could take an hour on its own.”
Why Maxpilot
After trialling two other platforms that felt “built for hospitals, not NDIS providers,” Sunrise discovered Maxpilot through a colleague at an NDIS networking event. The deciding factor was simplicity: the onboarding team had them live within four days, and support workers were able to use the mobile app without training.
We went live on a Monday. By Thursday, our staff were clocking in from their phones and managers could see the whole roster in real time. It was genuinely that fast.
The Results
Within eight weeks of going live, Sunrise had quantified the impact. Admin hours dropped from 35 hours per week across the team to under 14 — a reduction of more than 60%. Service agreement renewals, previously a manual calendar-chasing exercise, were now automated with email reminders and digital signatures.
PRODA claiming, previously a two-day process each fortnight, was cut to under three hours. The finance team now submits claims directly from Maxpilot without re-entering data.
What Changed Day-to-Day
- Support workers clock in and out via the mobile app — no more paper timesheets
- Shift notes are written on mobile immediately after each visit
- Managers approve notes, flag incidents, and update care plans from a single dashboard
- Participants and their families receive automated appointment reminders
Looking Ahead
Sunrise is now planning to grow to 120 participants within 12 months — growth that Priya says would have been “impossible to manage” with their old systems. “Maxpilot has given us the infrastructure to actually scale. We’re not afraid of taking on new participants anymore.”