Free Home Care Package Software in Australia: What HCP Providers Need and What's Available
Home Care Package providers have specific compliance obligations -- monthly statements, consumer-directed care records, SIRS incident reporting -- that generic software does not address. Here is what free HCP software exists and where it reaches its limits.
What the HCP Program Demands from Your Software
The Home Care Packages Program (now transitioning under the Support at Home reforms) imposes specific documentation and reporting obligations on providers that go beyond general workforce management.
Monthly statements. Providers must issue participants with a monthly statement showing the opening budget balance, all services delivered and their costs, any unspent funds, and the closing balance. Participants are entitled to this information and can ask for it at any time. Generating monthly statements requires that every service delivered is captured, coded, and costed against the participant's budget.
Care plan and budget alignment. Services delivered must be consistent with the participant's care plan and agreed budget allocation. The paper trail connecting care plan, budget, and delivered services is what an Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission audit will examine.
Consumer-directed care records. Participants have the right to direct their care. Any decisions a participant makes about their services need to be documented as the participant's decision, not the provider's operational convenience.
Worker qualification requirements. Home care workers delivering services under HCP must hold appropriate qualifications for the supports they provide. For personal care: Certificate III in Individual Support or equivalent. For clinical care: enrolled or registered nursing qualifications. First Aid, manual handling, and medication management endorsements apply for relevant service types.
Incident reporting. Serious incidents during HCP service delivery must be managed under the Aged Care Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS). All incidents must be internally documented and managed. Your incident records need to be accessible, structured, and linked to the participant's record.
What Free Software Actually Covers
Spreadsheets and Manual Systems
Most small HCP providers start here. A roster in Excel, a folder of care plans in a shared drive, monthly statements calculated manually, and incident reports on paper.
For a sole operator with two or three participants, this is manageable. As participant numbers grow, the manual overhead becomes unsustainable. Monthly statements for 15 participants, each with different service types and budget balances, calculated manually each month, is a significant administrative burden.
Best for: Sole operators at very small scale with minimal complexity.
Generic Scheduling Tools
Platforms like Deputy cover shift scheduling and have a mobile app. None have a concept of an HCP participant budget, consumer-directed care documentation, or monthly statement generation. They handle the scheduling layer but nothing specific to the HCP compliance environment.
Best for: The scheduling layer only, as part of a broader manual system. Not a complete solution for HCP compliance.
Teiro (Free for Up to 5 Users)
Teiro is built for Australian care providers, including Home Care Package and aged care operations. It is free for organisations with 5 or fewer active users -- no credit card, no trial expiry, no feature restrictions.
Participant records. Each participant has a record covering their personal details, care plan information, health alerts, family contacts, and a complete visit history. Carers access this from the mobile app before each visit.
Rostering and visit management. Create scheduled visits, assign carers based on availability and credential match, manage recurring service schedules, and see conflicts and gaps before they affect service delivery.
Carer mobile app. Carers see their schedule, access participant notes, check in and check out with GPS confirmation, and submit incident reports from the participant's home. Documentation is captured at point of care, not reconstructed afterwards.
Qualification tracking. Configure credential requirements for your workforce and the platform monitors expiry dates. First Aid, manual handling, Certificate III verification, medication management endorsements -- set the requirements and the system alerts before credentials lapse.
Communications hub. All coordinator-to-carer communications and participant-related notes are logged against records. When a participant contacts the office with a concern, the note is on their record.
Aged care billing. Service agreements, rate management, and claim tracking are included in the free tier.
The free tier has a user limit of 5 active users. For a small HCP operation -- a coordinator and two or three carers -- this covers normal operations. The sixth active user moves to a paid plan (see teiro.com.au/pricing).
Best for: Small HCP providers who need care-specific scheduling, credential tracking, and participant record management at no cost.
What Free Software Does Not Cover for HCP Providers
My Aged Care portal submission. Claim submission through the My Aged Care portal is a separate process. Teiro manages service delivery records and budget tracking on your side of the process; the portal submission step sits outside the platform.
Automated monthly statement generation. Teiro captures service delivery data that feeds into statements, but formatted consumer-directed care monthly statements require the billing tier.
Full case management. HCP case management -- formal assessments, goal setting, progress reviews, My Aged Care interactions -- is a deeper category of software than workforce management. Teiro manages the operational layer; comprehensive case management platforms are a separate category.
For small providers, these gaps are often manageable. The day-to-day coordination challenge -- getting the right carer to the right participant with the right information, and documenting what happened -- is covered.
When to Upgrade from Free
The free tier is the right starting point if:
- Your team is 5 or fewer active users
- You are establishing your HCP operations and building your participant base
- Your current system is spreadsheets or a manual process and you need structure without a capital commitment
- You want to evaluate care-specific software before committing to a paid plan
The upgrade conversation makes sense when your team grows past 5 users, when you need automated monthly statement generation, when you need payroll integrations, or when you need multi-branch management.
Getting Started
Teiro is free for organisations with 5 or fewer active users. Setup is self-service -- no implementation engagement, no sales call required to access the platform.
Book a demo at teiro.com.au/demo to see how HCP rostering, participant records, and carer communications work in practice. Or go straight to teiro.com.au/signup to set up your organisation today.
For broader context on free home care scheduling software, see free home care scheduling software for Australian providers. For the current Support at Home program changes, see Support at Home: what the 2025 aged care reform means for your operations.