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Understanding the Economic Impact/Capital Infusion Scorecard (ver. 2018)

This is a legacy scorecard based upon the SBA reporting requirements prior to October 1, 2023.

In 2018 the SBA required all SBDCs and WBCs to submit economic impact data via EDMIS. This scorecard incorporates the SBA requirements. It should be noted, that this scorecard can only be reliably generated for dates after September 30, 2018. This scorecard utilizes some client computed metrics that were only introduced in the Neoserra system effective September 30, 2018. Some line items are dependent upon these metrics and thus cannot be calculated for periods prior to September 30, 2018. Furthermore, because these are client metrics, and client records are associated with a single center, this scorecard is not well suited for those programs that offer cross-center counseling but who want to run goal sets on a single center.

This FAQ is divided into two main sections:

In order for a counseling session, milestone or capital funding event to be considered by the Economic Impact/Capital Infusion Report, the session records must:

  • Have the Reportable? check box selected
  • Have a date in the Reporting Date field for capital funding records or have a date in the Date field for milestone records that falls within the reporting period
  • Be assigned to the counselor specified in the scorecard definition (only applicable if the scorecard's output is restricted to a single counselor)
  • Be categorized under the funding funding sources specified in the scorecard definition
  • Be categorized under the sub-funding funding sources specified in the scorecard definition.
  • Be assigned to the center (or one of the centers) specified in the scorecard definition

Line Items 1-8: Economic Impact Data

The first 8 headings of the Economic Impact/Capital Infusion Report track new businesses created, jobs created and retained, and changes in sales/profits. This section, in particular, is dependent upon the new tracking tables incorporated into Neoserra effective October 1, 2018. For this reason, these line items will not yield accurate results for any periods prior to October 1, 2018. The following sections discuss how Neoserra calculates each economic impact line item on this report in accordance with SBA's requirements.

Line Item 2: New Businesses Created

This calculation mirrors the SBA's calculation of the New Businesses Created. The client's business start date must be "sandwiched" between two interactions with your program. A valid interaction can be either a counseling session or event attendance. Thus, the client must have at least one interaction (initial/follow-up counseling session or event attendance) dated prior to the company established date in order to be recognized initially as a pre-venture business (update sessions do not count in this case). However, the event attendance must be dated after 10/1/18 which is when SBA changed their guidelines for training attendance.

Once the company status has been updated to "In Business" by the entry of a date into the Date Established field, a follow-up or update counseling session dated after the date the company was established must also occur. Remember, that the session after the business start date must occur during the scorecard's reporting period and be designated as reportable in Neoserra in order to be counted in this calculation. All update sessions created by Neoserra will always be reportable.

Note: You will get incomplete and inaccurate data if you try to run this report on a per-center or per-counselor basis. Why? Because when you run this line item for a single center or a single counselor then the sandwich must be completed by that singular center or counselor. In other words, if the scorecard is restricted to a center/counselor then that center/counselor must satisfy the "sandwich rule" with one session performed within the center or by the counselor before the client goes into business and one session performed within the center or by the counselor after the client starts their business.

Take the following scenario into account for a scorecard limited to just one counselor's activity:

  • 1/1/2019 Counselor A meets with pre-venture Client X
  • 3/1/2019 Client X starts business
  • 6/1/2019 Counselor B conducts training with in-business Client X and this is when the Business Start is credited to the program within the EDMIS system. However, if you run a scorecard on Counselor A then the business start canNOT yet be credited to Counselor A because they do not meet the requirements of the sandwich. The business start will also NOT be credited to Counselor B because they didn't meet with or train the client before they started their business thus also not fullfilling the requirements of the sandwich rule.
  • 3/1/2020 Counselor A meets with Client X again, and Counselor A will now be credited with the business start on the Neoserra scorecard that is restricted to just their personal activity. Neoserra will perceive the client to have met the sandwich rule requirements as of 3/1/2020 with this counselor, even though the client went in business a year ago and the client was trained previously.

Line Item 3: Jobs Created (Full and part-time)

As noted in the introduction of this FAQ, some line items on this scorecard are dependent upon new logic introduced in Neoserra on September 30, 2018. This particular line item can only be calculated for reporting periods after September 30, 2018.

For this line item, Neoserra compares the number of employees reported in the last session of the reporting period to the number of employees reported in the last session prior to the start of said reporting period. If there were no jobs reported in the prior period, but there was job growth in the current period, then Neoserra will measure the change that took place in the current period. If the difference is a negative number, then jobs created will be zero.

As of October 1, 2018 SBA requires a prior year look-back in order to calculate this line item. For this reason, Neoserra was enhanced, as of September 30, 2018 with a new employee tracking table. The employee tracking table shows the total number of employees on any given date. While some data points may be shown prior to September 30th, the comparison will only work on scorecards with a start date after September 30, 2018:

Note: This line item does not look at milestone records.

Line Item 4: Jobs Retained

This line item is also dependent upon the Neoserra job tracking table and thus can only reliable be run with reporting dates after September 30, 2018. Furthermore, it should be noted that as of March 15, 2019 this definition was further refined to only include clients with more than one reportable session in their lifetime with your program. In other words, clients with only one session ever (be it training or counseling), will not be considered - a second touch point is required.

This line item looks at jobs retained as the total number of employees reported in the last session prior to the start of the reporting period and the last session of the current reporting period. For new clients, not existing in the prior reporting period, the employees reported in the first session of the reporting period will be used. Since this all sounds like a lot of hogwash, we created the following table to help illustrate. The number shown in green is always the lower number and will be used as jobs retained:

Total Employees last reporting period Total Employees current period Total Employees Retained
10 10 10
10 8 8
10 12 10

The most important thing to realize is that this scorecard line item is calculated by Neoserra on the fly. It is not based upon milestones! In fact, the Jobs Retained milestone is essentially obsolete with respect to SBA reporting. Administrators could inactivate this milestone, unless you need to track jobs retained differently for your other stakeholders. But for SBA's purposes, this milestone can be ignored. SBA essentially considers all jobs that the client carries over from a prior period to the current period as jobs retained.

Line Item 5: Jobs Supported

This line item was introduced in 2018 by SBA and is defined by SBA as the sum of jobs created line item and jobs retained line item. Again, this calculation is dependent upon the jobs tracking tables and thus cannot be calculated prior to September 30, 2018. Since this line item is a summation of Jobs Created plus Jobs Retained, this line item does not support the audit feature within the scorecard. If you wish to audit this line item then you will need to audit Jobs Created and then separately audit Jobs Retained.

And, as with jobs created and jobs retained, this line item is dependent upon there being two touch points with the client (pre-clients are not considered for this calculation).

Total Employees last reporting period Total Employees current period Total Employees Retained Total Jobs Created Total Jobs Supported
10 10 10 0 10
10 8 8 0 8
10 12 10 2 12

When you restrict your scorecard to a single counselor, this line item will report all jobs supported for those clients counseled for whom the counselor is the primary counselor on the client record. In other words, if Jane Doe is the primary counselor for XYZ company, but counselor John Smith counseled this client, then, when you run the scorecard for Jane Doe, she will get credit for the Jobs Supported, even if she herself did not counsel XYZ company. John Smith, other the other hand, will not get credit for these Jobs Supported. The reason Neoserra looks at the primary counselor is to avoid double counting of Jobs Supported when a client is counseled by multiple counselors, and ultimately, this line item is really designed to track Jobs Supported across the network as a whole.

Line Item 6: Change in Sales

Effective September 30, 2018 Neoserra also was enhanced with a sales tracking table on the client record, which is used for this scorecard line item calculation.

It is important to note, that the scorecard calculation only takes into account what is tracked on the client record, the line item does not pull from the milestone record.

Neoserra will report the positive difference between the latest sales data in the current reporting period, and the sales value reported in the prior period assuming the client had sales values in the prior period. In other words, Neoserra requires baseline data, before it can measure growth.

As per the SBA OED Terms, Definitions and Calculations document, clients must have received service in the previous reporting period in order to be included in this calculation and only positive growth is recognized:

It is important for users to ensure that the Gross Revenue value on the Neoserra client record is accurate and up to date. Because this calculation is dependent upon the newly introduced sales tracking table, this line item can only be calculated for reporting periods after September 30, 2018.

Line Item 7: Total Gross Revenues of Assisted Concerns

Neoserra merely sums the gross revenues entered for each client who received service during the period, without regard for the gross revenue date on the client record.

Line Item 8: Change in Profits

Unlike the change in sales, the change in profits calculation is a true measure of the change in profits - it will consider both profits and losses for those clients that received service during the period.

Line Items 9-24: Capital Infusion Data

The next section includes loan and equity data as broken down as follows:

Line Items 10 & 11: SBA Loans

The first two line items under the Capital Infusion section track the number and dollar amount of approved loans given to your clients by SBA during the reporting period. Neoserra looks to capital funding records for this information. The capital funding type must be marked as "SBA Loan" in the global configuration settings, and the record must have a status of "Approved"

Line Items 12 & 13: Non-SBA Loans

These line items track the number and dollar amount of approved other than SBA loans during the reporting period. The approved types of loans that might be considered include:

  • Commercial Loan
  • Line of Credit
  • Micro-Loan
  • Other Federal Loan
  • Any other user-defined capital funding type that is marked as "Regular Loan"

Line Items 14-15: Total Loans

Line Items 12 and 13 total the numbers and dollar amounts of all approved loans, SBA and non-SBA alike, for the reporting period. Mathematically speaking, heading 12 is the sum of heading 8 and heading 10. Line Item 13 is the sum of heading 9 and heading 11.

Line Items 17-18: Equity Capital

Line Items 15 and 16 total the number and dollar amount of equity capital capital fundings given to your clients during the reporting period. Neoserra looks to capital funding records for this information. In addition to the criteria listed previously, a capital funding record must also meet the following criteria in order for it to be included here:

  • The capital funding type must be "Owner Investment," "Stock Investment," "Venture Capital," "Other Equity Investment," or a user-defined capital funding type that is not marked as "SBA Loan," "Regular Loan," or "Grant" in the global configuration settings
  • The capital funding record must have a status of "Approved"

Line Items 20-21: Total Capital Infusion

The next line items total the number and dollar amount of both loans and equity capital received by your clients during the reporting period.

Line Items 23-24: Government Contract Awards

Next, the scorecard generates the government contract awards reported by your clients and recorded in the Neoserra database. All government contract awards are included (Prime Contracts, SBIR, STTR and Sub-contracts) except for those marked as having an agency type of "Commercial".

Line Items 25-41: Counseling and Training Data

The next section specifically looks at counseling sessions and training sessions. It breaks down as follows:

Line Items 26-27: Clients Counseled

Neoserra provides two client calculations. Line Item 24, Total Clients Counseled, represents the number of unique clients that received any type of reportable counseling, initial or follow-up, during the reporting period (excluding update sessions). Line Item 25, Number of New Clients Counseled, represents unique clients that received an initial counseling session during the reporting period. If the client receives counseling from two different programs in your database, then it is feasible that the client received an initial counseling session with two different funding source designations. In other words, the client may have multiple initial sessions. The client will be included in this line item if any initial counseling session falls within the reporting period and meets the funding source and centers specified in the definition.

Note: An initial or follow-up counseling session must meet the following criteria in order for its recipient to be counted as a 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 and sub-funding sources specified in the scorecard definition, (4) it must be assigned to the center (or one of the centers) specified in the scorecard definition, and (5) if the report's output is restricted to a single counselor, it must be assigned to the counselor specified in the scorecard definition.

Line Items 28-29: Client Hours

Line Item 26, Total Client Hours, represents the total amount of hours spent counseling clients that were counted in line 24. Line Item 27, New Client Hours, represents the total amount of hours spent counseling those clients that were counted in line 25.

Note: Both heading 26 and 27 consider all hours associated with a counseling session (preparation + travel + contact).

Line Items 30-31: Average Hours

The next two line items will calculate the average hours each client is counseled and the average hours per session. Again, prep, contact and travel time are all taken into consideration. The difference between these two line items is best shown with a table:

Session 1 Client A Session 2 Client A Session 1 Client B Session 2 Client B Average Hours
Per Client		 Average Hours
Per Session
2 hours 2 hours 3 hours 3 hours 5 (=10 hours/2 clients) 2.5 (=10 hours/4 sessions)

Line Item 32: Total Counselor Hours

Line Item 30 represents the total number of counseling hours (prep + travel + contact) logged by counselors during the reporting period. Because of the ability to assign multiple counselors to the same counseling session record and/or the ability to assign multiple clients to the same counseling session record, this number is not necessarily the same as the number found in line item 21. For example, if two counselors each counsel a client for one hour, two hours total will get logged for counselors under this heading (one hour for each of them), but only one hour gets logged for the client under heading 21.

Line Item 33: Extended Engagement Clients

Line Item 31 calculates SBA's definition of extended engagement clients. Per SBA, these clients are defined as 1) having received counseling in the current fiscal year and 2) having received at least 5 hours of counseling (contact time only) since the advent of EDMIS (October 1, 2005).

It should be noted that, in addition to meeting the criteria listed in the previous paragraph, counseling session records, in order for them to contribute to a client's counseling hours, must also (1) have the Reportable? check box selected, (2) be categorized under the funding and sub-funding sources specified in the scorecard definition, (3) be assigned to the center (or one of the centers) specified in the scorecard definition, and (4) if the report's output is restricted to a single counselor, be assigned to the counselor specified in the scorecard definition.

Line Item 34: Long Term Clients

Line Item 32 is a total of long-term counseling clients. Long-term counseling clients are defined as having received 5 or more hours of counseling (including preparation time) within the current fiscal year. For the purposes of this particular heading, the current fiscal year is based upon the fiscal year as defined by the Neoserra system administrator under the Neoserra General Settings. This configuration option, titled Fiscal year start month can be accessed by administrators in admininstrator-mode from the Administration|Configuration menu.

It should be noted that, in addition to meeting the criteria listed in the previous paragraph, counseling session records, in order for them to contribute to a client's counseling hours, must also (1) have the Reportable? check box selected, (2) be categorized under the funding and sub-funding sources specified in the scorecard definition, (3) be assigned to the center (or one of the centers) specified in the scorecard definition, and (4) if the report's output is restricted to a single counselor, be assigned to the counselor specified in the scorecard definition.

Line Items 35-40: Total Training Events, Sessions, & Attendees

In order for a training event record to be considered under these headings, it must:

  • Have the SBA888? check box selected
  • Have the Reportable? check box selected
  • Have a date in the Reporting Datefield that falls within the reporting period
  • Be categorized under the funding and sub-funding sources specified in the scorecard definition
  • Be assigned to the center (or one of the centers) specified in the scorecard definition
  • Have an instructor designated in the Instructor field that matches the counselor specified in the scorecard definition (only applicable if the report's output is restricted to a single counselor)

Line Item 33 tracks the total number of training events (via training event records) that took place during the reporting period.

Line Item 34 totals the number of sessions that took place for these training events (as entered into the Number of Sessions field found in each training event record).

Line Item 35 totals the number of attendees for these training events, which is pulled directly from the Total Attendees field found in each training event record. Attendees that attend multiple events will be counted for each event. In other words, if Jane Doe attends three qualifying events, then she will be counted three times in this line item calculation.

Line Item 36 totals the number of unique clients who attended your SBA 888 training events. This line item requires you to capture client details for each of your training attendees as discussed in this FAQ. If Jane Doe and John Smith from company X both attend one of your events, they will only be counted as one client. If Bob Jones from company Y attends multiple events, he will only be counted once. If Mary Roe attends one of your events and she does not have a corresponding client record (active or inactive), then she will not be included in this line item. Pre-clients are also excluded from this line item.

Line Item 37 calculates the number of hours that the instructor spends teaching the training event, whereas Line Item 38 calculates the total event hours multiplied by the total number of attendees.

Line Item 41: Total Clients Served

This last two line items of the scorecard provide a unique count of all clients who were either counseled and/or trained during the cumulative reporting period by your program. Neoserra offers two line items because it is OutreachSystems understanding that the EDMIS calculation for Total Clients Served does not actually follow the OED Terms, Definitions and Calculations for Clients Served:

It should be noted that the SBA definition clearly states that the client must have been counseled and/or trained during the period indicated. As such, it is OutreachSystems' understanding that Update sessions should not be included for consideration in this line item. However, you should also be aware that EDMIS does consider clients as having been served even if there was no counseling or training during the period, but the client record was updated, thus resulting in an Update session.

The Neoserra two line items differ as follows:

  • Clients Served (Substantive Counseling/Training)
    • This line item only includes clients who have received substantive counseling and/or training. This line item does not count clients whose only activity during the period was an update to their client record.
  • Clients Served (EDMIS Calculation)
    • This line item includes clients who have received counseling and/or training or those clients with an update session meaning that their client record was updated during the period. This line item should match your total clients served in the EDMIS system, even if it technically is a flawed calculation.

A client record must exist for the attendees of your training event in order for them to be included in either line item calculation. It is recommended that you capture company details for all your attendees as discussed in this FAQ. Pre-clients are not included in this line item calculation, the client record can be either active or inactive.

Based upon our research with several SBDC networks, we have determined that SBA calculates this line item on a discreet quarter basis, and SBA's calculation does not take the cumulative period into consideration. Thus, in the first quarter, every client with activity is considered to be a client served. However, in the second quarter, SBA doesn't count anyone who was already counted in the first quarter. In other words, only clients are considered in SBA's calculation, this is why your SBA report may show a drop in your quarterly totals. Neoserra, on the other hand, counts clients served over the course of the entire cumulative period. Fortunately, when you look at SBA's Fiscal Year-to-Date figures, they should again match Neoserra's figures.

It should be noted that these line items are both based upon your database as a whole, and thus cannot be run for a single counselor. In other words, when you restrict your scorecard to a single counselor, these line items will nonetheless include all clients served database-wide.

When restricting the scorecard to a center, then the center restriction will be applied both to the client's home center and the activity of that client. In other words, the calculation will only include clients who exist under the specified center record(s) and who have had either training and/or counseling under those specified center(s).



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