Your chance to weigh in…
As we work on modelling how best to display, search and filter clients and client data I want to better understand how everyone defines what a “client” is in their practice.
How do you define “client”? Select the one(s) that best fits your practice.
- An individual person (taxpayer or authorized person)
- A legal entity (individual, corporation, trust, partnership)
- A connected group of individuals and/or entities (a family, a corporate group)
- All of the above - let me decide when I load the client list
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voters
Are there any applications that you have used or are currently using that get this right (I.E. do a great job of organizing your clients in a way that makes it easy for you to find the client information and all their associated entities)? Let me know in the comments.
Poll closes August 10th 
I am not sure what you are after with your sorting (I don't use Client Manager for instance) but I tend to think of clients by invoice so I make a distinction between personal tax vs corporate tax for example but husband, wife and assorted dependents are all one client.
– laurieYes - that is exactly the type of feedback I am looking for. Could you share why you don't use Client Manager? Is there something different that would work better for you to manage clients and workflow?
– sarkaI also don't completely rely on the client manager. I would say I follow what Laurie said in the comments "personal tax vs corporate tax for example but husband, wife and assorted dependents are all one client". Once a dependent is not long dependent, they become a separate client. I use Client track for my corporate clients as it tracks all parts of a file. For Personal tax, I will admit I use an excel spreadsheet (I have a small practice). I should try to use the client manager more, but am hesitant to rely on it. My spreadsheet works for what I need.
– grangers2016I use Client Manager a lot, but my staff don’t. For legal purposes we treat each legal entity as a separate client (ie they each get separate engagement letters and communications. Privacy is maintained collecting and distributing information.) But in many ways we treat all the related companies and individuals as a “group of clients” and ensure they get similar service levels and sometimes group invoicing (families - not other legal entities).
– jglass