Understanding the 2007 Version of the SBA Quarterly Case Report

Important! EDMIS has replaced the SBA Quarterly Case Report. You no longer need to submit the numbers generated by this report to SBA via the imsecure Web site. Even though the official version of this report is obsolete, Softshare has created a new 2007 version that you can use internally to gather logical numbers regarding counseling sessions and the clients that received them.

The SBA Quarterly Case Report reflects the counseling activity of your center. The figures found in this report are based upon information stored in client, contact, and counseling session records. The following sections discuss how Softshare 'CATS calculates each line item on the SBA Quarterly Case Report in accordance with SBA's requirements. 

• Case Totals (Clients)
• Case Totals (Total Hours)
• Case Totals (Average Hours)
• Type of Business
• Business Ownership Gender
• Business Ownership Vet. Status
• SBA Relationship
• Ethnic Background - Race
• Ethnicity
• Areas of Counseling  

Case Totals (Clients)

The first heading, titled "Case Totals (Clients)," consists of two sets of numbers:

• Number of New Clients. This is the number of unique clients that received an initial counseling session during the reporting period.
• Number of Clients Counseled. This is the number of unique clients that received any type of counseling, initial or follow-up, during the reporting period.

Note: An initial or follow-up counseling session must meet the following criteria in order for its recipient to be counted as a new and/or counseled client: 1) its Reportable? check box must be selected, (2) the date in its Date field must fall within the reporting period, (3) it must be categorized under the funding source (or one of the funding sources) specified in the report generation criteria, (4) it must be assigned to the center (or one of the centers) specified in the report generation criteria, and (5) if the report's output is restricted to a single counselor, it must be assigned to the counselor specified in the report generation criteria. Notice that this list of criteria is less restrictive than the rules that EDMIS uses to qualify a counseling session.

Case Totals (Total Hours)

The second heading, titled "Case Totals (Total Hours)," consists of three sets of numbers:

• New Client Hours. This is the total number of hours (preparation, contact, and travel) spent counseling clients who received an initial counseling session during the reporting period. This means that when looking at new client hours for the current reporting period, you won't see any follow-up counseling sessions for those clients whose initial counseling session occurred outside of the current reporting period, even if it occurred within the cumulative reporting period.
• All Client Hours. This is the total number of hours (preparation, contact, and travel) spent counseling clients during the reporting period.
• All Prep & Contact Client Hours. This is the total number of preparation and contact hours, but not travel hours, spent counseling clients during the reporting period.

Note: In order for an initial or follow-up counseling session record's hours to be tallied under this heading, it must meet the requirements originally outlined under the Case Totals (Clients) heading.

Case Totals (Average Hours)

The third heading, titled "Case Totals (Average Hours)," consists of four sets of numbers:

• New Client Hours/New Clients. This is an average of the total number of hours spent counseling new clients. This average is reached by dividing the number of new client counseling hours (heading 02a) by the number of new clients (heading 01a).
• All Client Hours/All Clients. This is an average of the total number of hours spent counseling clients. This average is reached by dividing the number of all counseling hours (heading 02b) by the number of all clients counseled (01b).
• All Client Hours/New Clients [LEGACY]. This is an average that SBA used to require from the SBA Quarterly Case Report and Softshare has included it in this new version purely for historical purposes. As you may remember, this was never a true average because it compared apples to oranges. Reached by dividing the total number of all client counseling hours (heading 02b) by the number of new clients (heading 01a), this average is skewed high because its dividing the number of all client counseling hours by a smaller pool of clients (new clients only).
• All Prep & Contact Client Hours/New Clients [LEGACY]. This is also an average that SBA used to require from the SBA Quarterly Case Report and that Softshare has kept purely for historical purposes. And, as with the previous legacy average, this one too is flawed--in the same way. This average is reached by dividing the number of all preparation and contact counseling hours (heading 02c) by the number of new clients (heading 01a).

Type of Business

The fourth heading, "Type of Business," breaks down all counseled clients, not just new clients, into seven business types, as determined by the Business Type field found in a client record. We emphasized all clients in the previous sentence because this is a significant departure from the SBA-approved version of this report which only provided business type statistics (and other statistics) for client cases. The remaining headings on this Softshare version of the SBA Quarterly Case Report, just like this heading, consider all clients counseled in their breakdowns.

The following table shows how the values in the Business Type field are converted for the report. As you can see, the vast majority of business types are converted to "Not in Business, Other."

Note: If you were to total this heading's various business type categories, you would see that there is a one-to-one correlation between the total and the total number of clients counseled for the reporting period.

Business Ownership Gender

The fifth heading, "Business Ownership/Gender," breaks down all counseled clients by business ownership gender, as determined by the Company Gender field found in a client record. 

Note: As with the previous heading, the total of this heading's gender categories correlates one-to-one with the total number of clients counseled for the reporting period.

Business Ownership Vet. Status

The sixth heading, "Veteran Status," breaks down all counseled clients by business ownership veteran status, as determined by the Company Veteran field found in a client record. 

Note: As with the previous two headings, the total of this heading's veteran status categories correlates one-to-one with the total number of clients counseled for the reporting period.

SBA Relationship

The seventh heading, "SBA Client," breaks down all counseled clients by SBA client type, as determined by the SBA Client Type field found in a client record. 

Note: Because some SBA client types are counted twice, as shown in the previous graphic, there is not a one-to-one correlation between this heading's various SBA client type categories and the total number of clients counseled for the reporting period.

Ethnic Background - Race

The eighth heading, "Ethnic Background - Race," breaks down all counseled clients by ethnicity, as determined by the Race field found in a client's associated primary contact record. 

Note:If you were to total this heading's various ethnic background categories, you would see that there is a one-to-one correlation between the total and the total number of clients counseled for the reporting period.

Ethnicity

The ninth heading, "Ethnicity," breaks down all counseled clients by Hispanic ethnicity, as determined by the Hispanic Origin field found in a client's associated primary contact record. 

Note: If you were to total this heading's various Hispanic ethnicity categories, you would see that there is a one-to-one correlation between the total and the total number of clients counseled for the reporting period.

Areas of Counseling

The tenth and final heading, "Areas of Counseling," tracks the types of counseling provided, as determined by the SBA Counseling Area field found in a counseling session record, for all the initial and follow-up counseling sessions that took place during the reporting period.

Because a single client can have multiple counseling sessions per reporting period, there is no correlation between the total of this heading's various areas of counseling and the total number of clients counseled. In fact, there is not even a direct correlation between this heading's total and the total number of counseling sessions for the reporting period. That's because Softshare 'CATS will only tally a specific type of counseling once per client. For example, if a client is counseled twice during the reporting period, both times under the "Franchising" SBA counseling area, those counseling sessions are only counted once under the "Franchising" category. On the other hand, if a client is counseled twice during the reporting period, once under the "Technology/Computers" SBA counseling area and once under the "eCommerce" SBA counseling area, each session is counted under its respective counseling area.