What is the difference between a reportable session and a non-reportable session?
On each activity record (counseling/milestone/capital funding/award and training) you will find a checkbox at the bottom that allows you to set the session to reportable or non-reportable:
Setting a record to reportable means that it will be included, by default, in all scorecard calculations. Reportable activity is also exported to either the SBA backend system or the DoD spreadsheets. Generally speaking reportable activity represents time and effort for which you wish to receive credit from your funding partners.
But how do you determine if a counseling session should be marked as reportable or non-reportable? The easiest way to make this determination is to ask the following two questions about the counseling session:
- Is the information I am providing substantive?
- Substantive information is information that helps a client answer a business related question. Asking to set up a meeting with a client, is not substantive. Asking a client to complete a survey is not substantive.
- Is the information I am providing specific?
- Specific information means that it has to be specific to the client's business needs. Sending out a newsletter that is full of substantive information is NOT specific to the individual client who receives it because it may or may not address any information that they are specifically seeking.
The answer has to be YES to both questions for the counseling session to be reportable. If you need to answer NO to either or both questions, then the session in non-reportable.
Thus, leaving a voice mail message for a client to call you back does not meet the criteria of a substantive message. There is no information that you are providing the client that will substantively help them with their business issue.
Similarly, a blast email is not specific to a client?s personal needs. A newletter or general email to your clients may contain substantive information, however, a newsletter/blast email is not considered to be specifically addressing one client's business needs. The information may be helpful to their business but it does not specifically answer their unique question.
The bottom line is that a reportable session should be conducted one-on-one with a client and during the session you should have conveyed information that helps the client move forward with the next steps of their business.
Lastly, as noted here a reportable session can only be conducted with a client. You should never create reportable sessions with individuals or companies who are not clients of your program.
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