Client management glossary
Plain-language definitions of the intake, tracking, and reporting terms community organizations run into.
- Client intake
- The process of registering a person for services and recording the information your organization needs — name, household, needs, and consent. Good intake is fast and collects only what you'll actually use.
- Client recall
- Finding a returning client and their service history quickly, so staff don't have to re-ask the same questions or search through files at each visit. In Boswell, recall is a single search.
- Membership card
- A card that identifies a household at check-in. In Boswell, each card has a QR code. Staff print it, save it as an image or email it, and scan it to find the client's record.
- Service tracking
- Recording what your organization provided at each visit — food boxes, hygiene kits, financial aid, referrals, or other services — so you can report on it later.
- Intake form
- The questions staff answer when they register a client. Boswell asks for a name, with optional contact and address details, and admins add the options each program records. The answers flow into reports and CSV exports.
- Unduplicated count
- The number of distinct individuals served over a period, counting each person once no matter how many times they visited. Funders often require unduplicated counts, which depend on good client recall to avoid duplicate records — fast recall in Boswell surfaces a returning person before a second record is created, keeping the count clean.
- Case management
- Coordinating and tracking the services a client receives over time, including their history and notes, so your team can serve them consistently across visits and staff.
- Community-based organization (CBO)
- A nonprofit or community group that delivers services directly to a local population — such as a food pantry, harm reduction program, shelter, or community health center.
- Demographic reporting
- Summarizing who you served — by characteristics like age, location, or household — to meet funder and board requirements and to understand your impact. Boswell builds these from your intakes and exports them to CSV for Excel or Google Sheets, so a funder report isn't an afternoon in a spreadsheet.
- Enabling services
- Non-clinical services that help people access and benefit from care — such as transportation, food assistance, translation, or referrals — often tracked separately from a clinical record.
See these in practice
Boswell turns intake, recall, and reporting into something any volunteer can do in minutes.