Clients and businesses are the backbone of Catalyzer’s CRM capabilities, so it’s important to understand how these two entities—or objects—interact and depend on each other.

Clients

In Catalyzer, a client is the person who is interacting with or receiving services from your organization.

(A note on terminology: Even though many entrepreneur support organizations consider their clients to be the businesses they serve, this isn’t fully reflected in practice. Small business support is typically a person-first undertaking. We often serve founders when their businesses are still ideas—before paperwork is filed or websites exist. Even when services are delivered to businesses, they are almost always delivered through and for the benefit of the founder, whether that’s 1:1 counseling, cohort-based programming, workshops, or credit support. Founders may also operate more than one business over time. For all these reasons, Catalyzer treats the client as the person or founder, and the business as the venture they are pursuing.)

The way clients are stored in Catalyzer is similar to a large spreadsheet: each client record is one row. Any detail about the client—such as their:

• Name
• Gender
• Birthday
• Household income
• Consent to be surveyed

is stored in a column. These columns, or data fields about the client, are called properties.

Putting all of these terms together, you might hear something like:

“I went into Catalyzer and looked at Sam Johnson’s client record. I noticed that his phone number property was one digit off, so I corrected it.”

How to Create a New Client in Catalyzer

There are three ways a client can be created in Catalyzer.

Adding a Client Manually

To create a client manually, click “Add Client” on the Clients List page.

You’ll see a number of properties you can enter about the client and their business, but email address is the only required field to create a client record. This is because email address is the identifying property for the client object.

Once you’ve entered the information you want to capture, you can also add details for up to five businesses associated with that client (more on businesses below), as well as a note.

After saving, the new client will appear in both the My Clients tab and the All Clients tab.

Importing a List of Clients

To import a list of clients, see our article on best practices for importing clients into Catalyzer, which covers the process in more depth.

At a high level, you can import a CSV file by clicking “Add Client” on the Clients List page and navigating to the Import tab.

Creating a Client Through Form Submission

This is the most common way clients are created in a Catalyzer hub.

By default, forms will create a new client when a submission is received from an unrecognized email address. This behavior can be turned off in the form’s settings.

Any answers submitted to mapped form questions will automatically populate the corresponding client or business properties.

Some more advanced forms—such as applications—do not create clients immediately. In these cases, the submission must be accepted before the applicant becomes a client in your hub.

Businesses

The business object is distinct from—but tightly connected to—the client object.

In Catalyzer, businesses are housed within the client record. Any client can have up to five businesses.

Businesses have their own properties, such as:

• Business name
• Number of employees
• Annual revenue
• Industry

💡 Client vs Business Properties: When deciding where a piece of information belongs, ask yourself, “If this client had two businesses, would this information always be true no matter which business I’m talking about?"

If the answer is yes (for example, gender or birthday), it’s a client property.

If the answer could vary by business (for example, revenue, industry, or legal entity), it’s a business property.

How to Create a New Business in Catalyzer

To create a business, first navigate to the client it belongs to. A business must always be associated with a client—you cannot create a standalone business record.

From the Clients List page, click the client’s row to open their Client Record Page.

At the top of the page, you’ll see tabs such as Sessions, Forms, and Referrals. At the end of this list is a “+” button. Click it to add a new business.

For best data hygiene, be sure to enter at least a name for the business before saving. While the system allows unnamed businesses, it will default to a generic label like “Business 2.”

If the business does not yet have a formal name, that’s perfectly fine. You can use a descriptive placeholder such as “Danielle’s Vegan Bakery.”

The Client Record Page

The Client Record Page is the central hub for all information related to an individual client and their businesses.

Properties Panel

The left-hand panel contains the client’s core properties, including contact information, business details, and their most recent milestones.

Milestones

Milestones are special business properties that track values over time. Each update is stored with an associated date, allowing progress to be measured longitudinally. The most recent value and date are displayed by default.

Main Panel

The central panel contains records of services the client has received, from intake through ongoing engagement.

Sessions

The Sessions table lists all past and upcoming sessions for the client, including date, time, status, and the most recent note. Selecting a session opens its full record.

Forms

The Forms table shows all form submissions made by the client. New submissions are marked until viewed.

Notes

All notes related to the client appear here, including notes created directly on the client page or within a session. Session notes link back to their originating session.

Referrals

This tab displays all referrals where the client is the referred party.

Files

All files associated with the client appear here, including uploads from sessions, referrals, forms, milestones, and direct uploads.

Files can be previewed, downloaded, renamed, described, or deleted using the action menu.

Client Properties

This tab shows all client properties and their current values. Values can be updated, but historical entries cannot be edited or deleted.

Business Properties

Each business has its own tab (named after the business) containing its properties and milestones. Standard properties can be updated, and milestones can be edited or deleted from the Milestones tab.