Product Updates
Release notes, feature announcements, and improvements from the product team.
Release notes, feature announcements, and improvements from the product team.
Release notes, feature announcements, and improvements from the product team.
From October 6th, we’re changing when invoices for Support at Home and NDIS orders are sent to care providers and plan managers.
The change is designed to better align your invoicing process with the requirements of funded meal programs and reduce the risk of invoices being rejected.
Currently, invoices can be issued to a care provider or plan manager when the customer places their order, even though the meals may not be fulfilled until several days later.
From October 6th, the process will be:
| Recipient | When they receive their invoice |
|---|---|
Customer | When the order is placed |
Plan manager or care provider | When the order is fulfilled |
This means the customer’s invoice timing is not changing. The change only affects the funded invoice sent to the care provider or plan manager.
We’re also updating funded invoices, so it is easier for care providers and plan managers to understand when an order was placed and fulfilled.
Invoices will clearly display three dates:
For example, if a customer orders on 8 September and the order is fulfilled on 12 September, the funded invoice will show:
| Date | Shown on the invoice |
|---|---|
Invoice date | 12 September |
Fulfilment date | 12 September |
Order date | 8 September |
Because the care provider or plan manager will receive their invoice when the order is fulfilled rather than when it is placed, you may receive payment later than you do today.
The additional time will depend on the gap between when the customer orders and when their order is fulfilled.
The current average gap is approximately:
These figures represent the average time between ordering and fulfilment. They do not represent how long a care provider or plan manager takes to pay an invoice once they receive it.
While this may result in waiting slightly longer for funded payments, the change ensures invoices are issued at the appropriate point in the order lifecycle and should reduce the risk of invoices being rejected because they were issued too early.
There is no change to the timing or operation of existing accounting software integrations. NDIS & SAH Invoice timing issues
If you have questions about how this affects your business, contact our Customer Success team.
We’ve added more options for displaying media on your recipes, giving you more flexibility over how your dishes are presented to customers.
Alongside your usual recipe images, you can now add customer reviews, placeholder images and text cards to help provide more information about a dish or make your recipe pages more useful.
When adding media to a recipe, you now have a few more options for what can be displayed.
Have a great piece of feedback about a dish? You can add a customer review to your recipe media.
This gives customers a little more context from people who have tried the dish before and lets you highlight useful feedback alongside your recipe images.
For example:
“One of our family favourites. The kids ask for this every week!”
Custom Text cards let you add a short piece of information alongside your recipe media.
You might use one to highlight something worth knowing about the dish, explain how you make it or simply add a little more personality to how the recipe is presented.
For example:
Made from scratch
Our tomato sauce is slow-cooked in our kitchen using tomatoes, garlic and fresh herbs.
Don't have a photo for every dish yet? You can now use a placeholder image instead.
This gives you something more considered to display while you organise your own photography, rather than leaving the recipe without any imagery.
You don't need to choose just one type.
You can combine your dish photography, reviews, text cards and placeholder images to create a more useful collection of media for a recipe.
For example, a recipe might include:
Dish photo → Customer review → Another dish photo → Text card
There's no need to add every media type to every recipe. They're simply additional options you can use where they make sense for the dish.
A few simple places to start:
The new options are available when managing media within your recipes in Cookaborough.
We’ve refreshed Recipes to make creating and managing recipes faster and easier to navigate.
The Recipe builder now has a cleaner, more compact layout, so you can see more of your recipe in one place, with improved navigation and less scrolling.
Your existing recipes haven’t changed and there’s nothing you need to update. They will simply appear in the new layout the next time you open them.
❓Need help finding your way around?
Visit our Recipes help guides for step-by-step instructions on the new Recipes and its features.
Here’s your monthly roundup of what’s been happening on Cookaborough. From new features to ongoing improvements and fixes, check in here each month to stay up to date with the latest changes and see what’s new behind the scenes.
The AI Ingredient Importer makes adding ingredients to recipes faster and smarter. Simply drop in a URL, file, image, or text, and the system will pull out ingredient lines, suggest database matches, and fill in details like quantities, units, and allergens. Everything is presented in a clear review step, so cooks can tweak or correct anything before importing. It’s a quicker, more guided way to build recipes—saving time while keeping full control over the final result. If you give it a try, we’d love to hear your feedback.
For more information click here.
We’ve improved how groups work, making segmentation more flexible and powerful. You can now build more precise customer groups using smarter logic and a wider range of conditions. With filters covering customer details, order behaviour (like first or last order date, lifetime value, or order frequency), account activity, and logistics such as delivery zones or tags, it’s easier to layer rules and create highly defined, targeted audiences.
This gives you greater control when tailoring communications, reporting, and campaigns. For more information click here.
Gift Cards sold via your Cookaborough homepage will be issued by Cookaborough. While they will still be branded to your business and only redeemable with you, the funds from the initial sale will be held by Cookaborough until the card is used.
Once a customer redeems their Gift Card to place an order, the corresponding funds will be automatically transferred to your Stripe account. For more information click here.
Ordering is now quicker with a new one-click “add to cart” option. A simple “+” icon lets customers instantly add single-size items, while multi-size items prompt size selection. Early testing shows this update encourages more items to be added, especially helpful for returning customers who know what they want.
We’ve streamlined the sidebar with a cleaner, more organised layout. Sections are easier to navigate, and you can now collapse it into icons to free up space on smaller screens
You can now choose whether to receive order confirmation emails for manual orders. Just head to Settings > Notifications Received to adjust your preference.
You can now view your relationship with Care Providers / Plan Managers on your Cook Dashboard with ticks and crosses to represent whether or not you have been successfully onboarded.
Credit Notes have previously been created by our Customer Success team. However, you can now issue a refund directly on the order by clicking Cancel Order. This sends a refund to the original payment method for the customer and if the customer uses SaH or NDIS, it will automatically send a Credit Note to the customer’s Care Provider or Plan Manager with no further action needed.
This feature also sends an email to the customer to inform them of their refund and an email to the appropriate Care Manager or Plan Manager with the Credit Note attached. You can read more in our guide here.
We're announcing an upcoming change to how Gift Cards are managed on Cookaborough that will take effect from April 16th.
What’s changing?
Gift Cards sold via your Cookaborough homepage will be issued by Cookaborough. While they will still be branded to your business and only redeemable with you, the funds from the initial sale will be held by Cookaborough until the card is used.
Once a customer redeems their Gift Card to place an order, the corresponding funds will be automatically transferred to your Stripe account.
Why we’re making this change?
As Cookaborough manages payments via the platform, we are required to ensure that customers receive the products and services they have paid for, including where Gift Cards are used. This means Cookaborough must be able to support customers with refunds or issue resolution where required.
Over the last few years, we’ve also seen a number of businesses cease operations with unfulfilled Gift Cards. In these instances, where the business is not in a position to issue refunds, Cookaborough has stepped in to cover the cost of gift card refunds at considerable expense.
By shifting issuance to the platform:
Over the last few years we've seen a number of businesses cease operations with unfulfilled Gift Cards. In these instances, where the business is not in a position to issue refunds Cookaborough has stepped in to cover the cost of gift card refunds at considerable expense.
What’s not changing?
You will continue to have the ability to create Gift Cards via your dashboard, these Gift Cards are issued free of fees and can be used for promotions, gifts and donations.
You have the ability to opt-out from selling gift cards via your home page, the control for this remains in your Settings > Gifting
Terms of Use update:
The change to how gift cards are issued and processed is now reflected in our Terms of Use. We encourage you to take a moment to review the revised terms here.
What does this mean for you?
The customer experience remains exactly the same. The only difference you will see is that revenue from Gift Card sales will appear in your account at the point of order fulfilment rather than at the point of the initial voucher sale.
You are no longer exposed to unredeemed Gift Card liability and Cookaborough will manage any customer refunds.
If you have any questions about these changes, please don’t hesitate to reach out via [email protected]
Best regards,
The Cookaborough Team
This session covers the new Support at Home compliance obligations, specifically the annual APD review, and how to ensure your menus meet compliance requirements. Expert Dietitian Peninsula Physical Health and Nutrition explains the process and answers your queries.
We want to recognise the fantastic effort from those businesses who have already completed their APD or are well on their way. Most are comfortably meeting the requirements. For those of you who have not met the March 31 deadline, please be in touch via [email protected].
View the slides HERE
Or watch the full session below to catch all of our tips and insights.
Need more information? Contact Cookaborough Support:
✉️ [email protected]
We're introducing important updates to how compliance is managed on Cookaborough.
These changes are designed to:
These updates apply to all food businesses on Cookaborough and take effect this week.
In addition to supplying a current:
All businesses operating on Cookaborough must also submit:
Previously, insurance certificates were only required for food businesses servicing Government programs.
All businesses will be asked to complete a short declaration confirming:
If you service Government programs, you’ll also be asked to confirm that:
All links and resources will be included in the declaration for easy access.
We’re introducing a new system to help you stay on top of compliance:
If they are not already uploaded into Cookaborough, start gathering your up-to-date compliance certificates.
From this week, you’ll be prompted in the platform to upload or update your compliance documents and complete your relevant declaration(s). We’ll guide you through every step.
If you service Government program customers, we recommend reviewing the following resources:
Support at Home
🎥 Video - Aged Care Code of Conduct
📃 Aged Care Code of Conduct
📄 Meal Provider Obligation Fact Sheet
📃 Aged Care Serious Incident Response Scheme
NDIS
🎥 Video - NDIS Code of Conduct
Need more information? Contact Cookaborough Support:
✉️ [email protected]
We’re excited to share that we’ve been working on a series of improvements that will make managing Support at Home (SaH) and NDIS applications simpler and more efficient for both you and your customers.
As the government programs segment continues to grow, we’ve identified the need to streamline application management and reduce administration for Meal Providers - so you can focus on what you do best.
1. We’re introducing a clearer application experience, including the ability to link profiles and add representative details (such as a family member who assists the customer).
2. We’re centralising and simplifying the approval process to reduce admin for your team.
3. We’re also giving you the ability to create customer profiles directly from within your dashboard.
These updates are designed to reduce duplicate applications, simplify approvals, and make it easier to onboard customers who need assistance getting started.
You can now create customer profiles directly from your dashboard, making it much easier to assist customers who aren’t confident signing up online or who prefer to order by phone or in person.
ℹ️ How to create a customer profile
We’ve refreshed the SaH and NDIS tabs on your Cookaborough site, making them clearer and providing additional information to help customers understand how to get started.
Customers will see a clearer, more user-friendly way to sign up and submit an application, including:
Each customer will have just one SaH or NDIS application, rather than a separate one for every Meal Provider they order from. This ensures information stays up to date across the platform, minimising errors and administration.
To ensure consistency and accuracy, approvals will now be handled by the customer’s Care Provider or Cookaborough’s Support at Home Concierge team.
Meal Providers will no longer be able to approve pending applications, but you will still be able to:
To create a single, central place for managing your customers and their applications, all SaH and NDIS information will now appear within Customer Profiles. Within the customer's profile, you can create an application.
ℹ️ Create an SaH or NDIS application
ℹ️ View a customer’s application details
--
You can expect to see these improvements rolled out next week.
If you have any questions, reach out to our friendly support team.
Email us at [email protected] or call 1300 302 665.
We’ve previously shared information about the Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) annual review requirement for Support at Home meal providers.
We are now hearing from many Care Providers across the market that they expect to receive APD completion certificates by 31 March 2026.
To avoid any disruption to your ability to service Support at Home customers, we strongly recommend that you book your review as soon as possible and begin preparing now.
These guides will walk you through the process step-by-step:
➡️ Prepare for your APD Review
➡️ Book your APD Review with Cookaborough’s Dietitian Partner
If you’re unsure about what’s required, please reach out to our team for guidance.
If you have any questions, reach out to our friendly support team.
Email us at [email protected] or call 1300 302 665.
We’ve updated the Support at Home (SaH) invoice format. Previously, GST was shown only as a total on the invoice. Now, GST is itemised per line item.
This change was made following consultation with Care Providers and aligns with Support at Home requirements that commenced on 1 November 2025.
Under Support at Home, Care Providers require clear visibility of GST at the item level.
Take a look at an example of the new invoice format here:
📄 Sample Support at Home invoice
This update supports smoother processing of Support at Home invoices, helping to avoid delays in payment.
Now is a good time to review the GST status of your menu items. If there are discrepancies in how GST has been applied, Care Providers may request further clarification, which can result in payment delays.
We recommend the following steps:
1. Review our guide on GST and Food
2. Go to the Recipes tab in your Cook dashboard
3. Check that each item is marked correctly as GST-free or GST-applicable
Any questions regarding the GST status of an item should be referred to your accountant.
➡️ What you need to know about GST and food
If you have any questions, reach out to our friendly support team.
Email us at [email protected] or call 1300 302 665.