Nookal help in Australia: support, setup, data moves and ongoing admin, compared

We run one of the services on this list. DotVA places offshore VAs who do ongoing admin inside a clinic’s Nookal account, from 10 hours a week. We do not sell one-off Nookal setup, data migration or training packages, and we are not Nookal’s support desk. If you have a how-to question, need a new account configured, or are moving from other software, other rows in this table are the right place to look and we are not. That is the most useful thing we can tell you, so it comes first.

The method is the same as our comparison of Australian VA agencies. Every claim about another provider comes from its own website, or for Nookal itself from Nookal’s own pages, checked on 11 November 2026 and linked in the table. Where a figure is not published we write “not stated publicly” rather than guess, and where a site does not say where its people are, we do not assume. Nookal’s help centre blocked our automated checks, so for Nookal’s own support we rely on its pricing, contact and service level pages, which loaded. The access section draws on Nookal’s help centre as shown in search results, not a direct check.

The services at a glance

Provider	What kind of help	Published price	Where the people are	One-off setup or migration?	Ongoing admin in Nookal?	Terms
DotVA Nookal virtual assistant (that’s us)	Managed offshore VA: one dedicated person who works in your Nookal account to your direction	$12-17/hr admin, $18-25/hr specialist, AUD ex GST, from 10 hrs/week	Philippines, working Australian business hours	No. We do not sell setup, migration or training packages	Yes: the Diary, Waiting List, class rosters, recalls, invoices and claiming admin	No lock-in contract; stop any time in the first 14 days, then 30 days’ notice; free replacement any time
Nookal support	The software company’s own support: help centre and community, email and chat through its help desk	Included in the plans it publishes; Essentials $208 a month for 6 practitioners ($34.67 each), AUD ex GST, with a higher per-practitioner rate for smaller teams; admin and reception staff are free	Queensland postal address; support hours AEST 9am to 5pm (plus European hours), Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays	Free self-import of patient details and contacts; a paid one-off migration service for patients, appointments and clinical notes, quoted on request	Not offered; support answers questions about the software	Month to month, no lock-in; 30-day free trial
Tagence (Tamar Simai)	Independent consultant on Nookal’s N.I.C.E list under Nookal Setup, process and systems automation, and business data analysis; Tagence’s own site says she is a N.I.C.E expert and teaches staff new systems	Not stated publicly	Not stated on the pages we checked	Yes: Nookal’s list says she helps clinics set up Nookal to suit how they run	Offers ongoing practice manager engagements; Nookal admin not specified	Not stated publicly
Code Squirrel	Software house building on Nookal’s public API: custom reports, dashboards, workflows and integrations	Fixed-price estimate per project; amounts not stated publicly	Family-owned, Brisbane; data stored and processed in Australian data centres	Not on its Nookal page (Nookal’s list also names data migration); it provides documentation and handover	No: development and reporting, not admin	Not stated publicly
Virtual Connect	Allied health admin by hourly rate, weekly retainer or project	Amounts not stated publicly; projects priced per task	Not stated publicly	Yes: lists setup of Nookal (staff schedules, appointment types, forms, cases) as project work	Yes: weekly retainer, 5 hours a week minimum	No lock-in contracts
Clinic Aide	Reception and admin team; shows Nookal’s logo among the systems it works with regularly	Admin $80-95/hr plus a $245 onboarding fee; reception plans $150-1,275 a month plus a $14.95 monthly phone line fee; all ex GST	Adelaide; says its whole team are Australian residents	Practice management software set-up or audit at $95/hr ex GST, minimum 3 hours (Nookal not named on that page)	Yes: calls, booking, rescheduling and cancelling in your practice management system	No locked-in contracts
Beyond the Maze	Virtual assistants and receptionists, listed on Nookal’s N.I.C.E list for Nookal reception; its FAQ says it is experienced in Nookal	Not stated publicly	Australian VAs, with offshore VAs in the Philippines on some work (only after discussion with you, its FAQ says); reception by its Australian team	Its allied health page video says it can set up programs including Nookal as project work; no price published	Nookal’s list says it offers Nookal reception services	No minimum contract; 7 days’ written notice
Clinic Admin	Managed offshore admin staff, priced per full-time role; says its team also supports Nookal, with Cliniko its deepest area	Not stated publicly; quoted per full-time role in AUD	Supervised office in Balanga, Philippines	No one-off package found	Yes, full time	Its FAQ says no recruitment fees and no exit penalties; its terms set 30 days’ written notice and allow early termination fees for shorter notice
HealthDoers	Offshore allied health VAs; lists Nookal among the systems its team works in	”From $24,000 /year”, all-inclusive (currency and GST basis not stated)	Says it places healthcare-trained offshore Filipino staff; offices in Richmond, Victoria and Taguig, Metro Manila	Not listed	Yes	Says no lock-in contracts, $0 setup fees and a replacement guarantee during onboarding; its terms set 30 days’ written notice and a security deposit per role, refer to non-refundable activation fees, and require a one-off payment of 18-50% of the annualised contract value if you hire the VA directly during the engagement or within a year after it ends

Checked on 11 November 2026 on the pages linked. “Not stated publicly” means we could not find the figure on the pages we read; it is an observation, not a criticism.

Nookal’s list names seven other entries that are not Nookal admin or setup: Lock HR (business planning and coaching), Plain Speaking Health (growth strategy and marketing), Flock Consulting and Janice Cook (reporting and dashboards), Sound Business Systems (speech recognition and dictation), Cotchy (accounting) and Physio Business Growth (clinic performance and leadership). We have not checked those sites; the descriptions are Nookal’s, on its list.

Our row in full is on pricing. If a 30-minute call beats ten tabs, book a discovery call, and if another row fits your clinic better we will tell you on the call.

Three products share one label

Searches for Nookal help, a Nookal consultant and a Nookal virtual assistant land on three different products.

1. Software support (Nookal). How to use a feature, why something is not working, what a setting does. Nookal’s service level page lists email and chat through its help desk on both plans, with first-response targets that are, in its words, “targets, not guarantees”: for a question or request, three business days on Professional and best effort on Essentials. Support explains the software. Someone still has to run the diary.
2. A one-off setup, data move or training job (Nookal’s own migration service, Tagence, Virtual Connect). Someone builds the account around how your practice works: schedules, appointment types, forms, cases, and the move of your history from the old system. Code Squirrel does a different one-off job: reports and integrations built on Nookal’s API.
3. Ongoing admin done by a person inside your Nookal account (DotVA, Virtual Connect, Clinic Aide, Beyond the Maze, Clinic Admin, HealthDoers). The Diary, the Waiting List, class rosters, invoices and follow-up, every week.

Most frustration comes from buying one when you needed another. A VA is not a faster route to a setup project, and a setup project does not work the Waiting List in March.

What the options cost

These figures use each provider’s published price. Where we have multiplied or divided, that is our arithmetic, not the provider’s quote.

Option	Published price	What that buys
Nookal support	Included; Essentials $208 a month for 6 practitioners ($34.67 each), AUD ex GST; dearer per practitioner for smaller teams	Email and chat through the help desk, help centre and community
Nookal patient and contact import	Free to do yourself	Patient details and contacts only
Nookal paid migration	Quoted on request	Patients, appointments and clinical notes
Tagence, Code Squirrel, Virtual Connect	Not stated publicly	Setup, or a project quoted per scope
Clinic Aide software set-up or audit	$95/hr ex GST, minimum 3 hours	Practice management software set-up or audit (Nookal not named)
Clinic Aide admin and reception	Admin $80-95/hr plus a $245 onboarding fee; reception plans $150-1,275 a month plus a $14.95 monthly phone line fee; all ex GST	Admin hours or call-answering plans
DotVA admin VA	$12-17/hr ex GST	10 hours a week for $120-170 a week, about $520-736 a month
HealthDoers	From $24,000 a year, all-inclusive (currency and GST basis not stated); its terms add a security deposit per role	A VA role; the page says pricing varies by role scope and hours

Nookal bills by practitioner, and admin and reception staff are free, so an assistant’s login adds nothing to the subscription whichever provider you choose. With us, a $500 deposit is credited to your first invoice.

How to compare them

1. Question, project or weekly work? A question goes to Nookal. A project has an end date and a handover. Weekly work needs the same person back every week.
2. Moving systems? Ask Nookal first: import of patient details and contacts is free, and its paid migration service covers appointments and clinical notes. Get the quote before you set a go-live date.
3. Which plan? Nookal’s pricing page lists self-serve onboarding on Essentials and standard, paid onboarding on Professional; its service level page calls Professional onboarding guided. Ask Nookal what that includes before you rely on it.
4. Who trains your team? Nookal’s pricing page lists custom staff training on the Enterprise plan; we did not find it described for the other plans on the pages we could read. If you want a person to walk staff through it, ask any setup provider whether training is in the quote.
5. Which claims do you run? Ask each provider who lodges and whose login is used. A DotVA VA prepares invoices and claiming admin in Nookal and follows up rejections; claiming set-up and any government logins stay with the practice.
6. How many hours? Under five hours a week, a small project from a setup provider fits. Virtual Connect’s retainers start at five, and Clinic Aide’s casual admin has no monthly minimum, at $95 an hour ex GST. We start at 10. Clinic Admin prices a full-time person.
7. What are the exit terms? They run from no lock-in at all, through 7 to 30 days’ notice, to security deposits. Read the terms page as well as the marketing page.

Access and privacy: set this up before anyone logs in

Nookal controls access through Permission Groups, which you set and edit in Setup. Nookal’s help centre describes the options; it blocked our automated checks, so confirm the settings in your own account. This applies to every provider on this page, us included.

• One login per person. Never share a single login between several people, so you can tell who did what.
• The lowest access that does the job. Give an admin assistant a group that excludes clinical notes, and keep the Owner group for the people who own the account. Check Nookal’s help centre for how to set each section and when changes take effect.

Giving an overseas assistant access to client information is, in most cases, a cross-border disclosure under APP 8 of the Australian Privacy Principles: you must take reasonable steps to make sure the overseas recipient handles the information in line with the APPs, and you generally remain accountable if they do not. That obligation sits with you as the practice disclosing the information, and it applies to our VAs as much as to the other offshore rows. This is general information, not legal advice. Our guide to hiring an offshore VA legally covers the obligations.

Our own practice, which is a policy and not a legal requirement: the VA has their own Nookal login in a group you set, any other credentials are shared through a password manager, and a confidentiality agreement is signed before day one. The detail is on our data security page. Where a provider does not say where its people are, ask before you grant access.

Who should pick whom

• A how-to question, or something is not working: Nookal support first. It is the software company, and it is included in your plan.
• Moving from another system: Nookal’s free import for patient details and contacts, or its paid migration service if you need appointments and clinical notes. Ask for the quote early.
• A Nookal account configured for how your clinic runs: Tamar Simai of Tagence, who is listed under Nookal Setup, or Virtual Connect, which lists setup of Nookal as project work, or Clinic Aide, which publishes $95 an hour ex GST (minimum 3 hours) for practice management software set-up, or Beyond the Maze, whose allied health page says it can set up Nookal as project work, with no price published. Tagence and Virtual Connect publish no price, so ask for a written scope. Nookal’s list is not an endorsement, so check references.
• Custom reports, dashboards or an integration with other systems: Code Squirrel, which quotes a fixed price per project.
• Business planning, accounting, dictation or practice performance help: the consultants on Nookal’s list in those categories. We have not assessed them.
• Phones and reception from an Australian team: Clinic Aide, which says its whole team are Australian residents, or Beyond the Maze, whose reception is provided by its Australian team. Clinic Aide shows Nookal among the systems it works with regularly, and Beyond the Maze says it is experienced in Nookal. Ask each what Nookal work is included.
• A full-time offshore team member: Clinic Admin if you want a supervised office in the Philippines, or HealthDoers, which prices by role scope and hours.
• 10 to 30 hours a week from one dedicated person in your Nookal account, at a published hourly rate: that is the clinic we built DotVA for. You meet a shortlist of matched VAs before you choose, so ask each about their Nookal experience. We are open that fewer VAs have logged serious Nookal hours than Cliniko hours, and we tell you on the discovery call if our closest candidate is strong on a similar platform instead. If your account is not set up yet, do that first with one of the options above. See what the work looks like on our Nookal, physiotherapy and allied health pages.

Run your own numbers

Price your hours on the VA cost calculator and check our tiers on pricing. Our comparison of allied health virtual assistant services covers more providers that work in Nookal, along with the AI receptionists that book into it, and the Cliniko equivalent of this guide is there if you run both systems. If the right answer for your clinic is one of the other names in the table, we would rather you find that out now than in month two.