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Client Groups ​

Organize related clients together for consolidated reporting, batch project creation, and streamlined management.

Overview ​

Client Groups in Hidma let you organize multiple related clients into logical collections, treating them as a unit for certain operations while maintaining their individual identities for billing and financial reporting. This grouping capability is particularly valuable when you serve corporate families with multiple legal entities, industry consortiums with shared needs, or any situation where multiple distinct clients have commonalities that make grouped management beneficial.

When you create a client group, you're establishing a container that holds multiple clients while preserving each client's independence. Each client retains their own billing, projects, and financial tracking, but the group provides a lens for viewing and managing them collectively. This dual perspective - individual client detail plus grouped overview - gives you flexibility in how you work with related clients.

When to Use Client Groups ​

Corporate Families ​

Many professional services firms work with corporate structures that include parent companies, subsidiaries, sister companies, and related entities. Perhaps you serve Acme Corporation along with Acme Manufacturing, Acme Distribution, and Acme Services - all legally distinct entities requiring separate billing and financials, but all part of the same corporate family. Creating an "Acme Group" lets you see consolidated activity across the family while maintaining proper separation for invoicing and accounting.

This grouped visibility helps you understand the total relationship value, coordinate work across multiple entities, identify opportunities for cross-selling services between related companies, and provide executive reporting that shows the family's aggregate engagement with your firm.

Sometimes multiple unrelated clients need essentially identical work delivered on the same schedule - perhaps a consortium of industry participants who all need the same quarterly compliance reports, or a group of nonprofits who all need annual audits following the same timeline. Grouping these clients lets you create identical projects for all of them simultaneously rather than creating each project individually, saving significant administrative time.

The group becomes a convenient shortcut for "these ten clients all need the Q3 compliance report project created with the same structure and timeline." One operation sets up work for all ten clients, dramatically accelerating your project setup workflow.

Industry or Service Specialization ​

Firms that specialize in serving specific industries or client types might group clients by these characteristics for reporting and analysis. Perhaps all your healthcare clients in one group, all your manufacturing clients in another, all your nonprofit clients in a third. These industry-based groups help you analyze practice area performance, understand which industries consume most staff time, identify industry-specific trends, and demonstrate industry expertise through aggregate statistics.

While not strictly necessary for operational purposes, these analytical groupings provide strategic insights about your practice composition and growth trajectories.

Creating Client Groups ​

Basic Setup ​

Navigate to Clients and look for "Client Groups" in the menu (exact location depends on your interface configuration). Click "Create New Group" or the + button to begin setting up a group.

Name the Group descriptively so its purpose is immediately clear - "Acme Corporate Family," "Q3 Compliance Consortium," "Healthcare Clients," or "Northeast Region." The name appears in reporting and project creation interfaces, so make it meaningful to anyone who might use it.

Add Clients to the Group by selecting from your client list. Check the boxes next to all clients that should belong to this group. You need at least one client to create a group, though groups typically contain three or more clients to justify the grouping overhead. There's no maximum - groups can contain dozens or even hundreds of clients if appropriate for your structure.

Set Team Restrictions (Optional) if this group should only be visible to specific teams within your organization. Perhaps the Healthcare practice group should see healthcare client groups, while the Manufacturing team sees manufacturing groups. Team restrictions control who can view and use the group, maintaining appropriate segmentation when you have multiple practice areas or offices.

External Group Flag designates whether this is a "real" group - meaning these clients are actually related entities like a corporate family - or an "internal" group you've created for your own organizational convenience. External groups might warrant special handling in certain reporting contexts, while internal groups are purely for your operational benefit and don't represent actual client relationships.

Save the Group and it immediately becomes available for consolidated reporting and batch operations. The group appears in interfaces where you can select clients, providing a quick way to reference all member clients simultaneously.

Managing Group Membership ​

Client relationships evolve over time - you take on new entities within a corporate family, clients leave, or your internal categorization changes. Edit the group to adjust membership as needed.

Adding Clients to an existing group brings them into the collective visibility and makes them eligible for batch operations. Perhaps you initially worked with just the parent company, but now you're serving three subsidiaries as well - add them to the corporate family group.

Removing Clients from a group when relationships end or when clients no longer fit the grouping criteria. Perhaps a company was sold out of the corporate family, or you've completed work for a member of an industry consortium. Removal doesn't affect the client's individual data; it just removes them from grouped operations.

Dissolving Groups entirely when they're no longer useful. Perhaps the consortium project is complete, or you've reorganized your practice areas. Deleting a group affects only the grouping - all member clients remain fully intact with all their data, projects, and billing history.

Using Client Groups ​

Consolidated Dashboards ​

When you select a client group instead of an individual client, Hidma presents a consolidated dashboard showing aggregate activity across all group members. This grouped view displays total work in progress across all member clients, combined outstanding bills showing collective receivables, summed revenue generated by all members, team utilization on grouped work, and period-over-period trends for the entire group.

This consolidated visibility helps answer questions like "How much revenue does the Acme corporate family generate?" or "What's our total exposure in outstanding receivables across all healthcare clients?" - insights that would require manual aggregation without the grouping feature.

The dashboard typically provides drill-down capability, letting you click through to individual client details when you need to understand which specific client contributed particular amounts or requires attention.

Batch Project Creation ​

Perhaps the most operationally valuable use of client groups is creating identical projects for multiple clients simultaneously. Navigate to Projects and choose "Create Project for Multiple Clients" or "Create from Group" (interface varies by version).

Select the Client Group rather than picking clients individually. All group members become automatically selected, saving the manual checkbox selection when groups contain many clients.

Configure the Project Once - name, description, team assignments, budget, jobs allowed, status, and any other project parameters. This single configuration will apply to all clients in the group.

Create Projects and Hidma generates an identical project for each client in the group, customizing only the client association while keeping all other attributes consistent. In seconds, you've created perhaps 10, 20, or 50 projects that would have taken significant time to create individually.

This batch creation is particularly powerful for recurring work - perhaps monthly bookkeeping for a group of small business clients, or quarterly compliance reports for an industry consortium. The identical nature of the work makes batch creation both appropriate and highly efficient.

Group-Based Reporting ​

Many reports in Hidma allow filtering or grouping by client group, providing analyses that compare groups or examine specific groups in detail. Perhaps you want to compare revenue by industry group to understand which sectors are most profitable. Or analyze utilization across all corporate family groups to identify which families consume most staff time. Or examine receivables aging by client group to understand collection patterns across different client types.

These grouped reports provide strategic insights difficult to achieve when looking at clients purely as individuals. Patterns emerge at the group level that individual client analysis might miss.

Best Practices ​

Client Group Management

Group by Natural Relationships First Create groups based on real relationships - corporate families, shared ownership, actual consortiums - before creating groups based on your internal categorization needs. Natural relationship groups are more stable over time and more meaningful for client reporting, while internal categorization groups tend to shift as your practice evolves.

Keep Groups Purposeful Only create groups that serve clear operational or analytical purposes. Every group adds a small amount of complexity to your client management, so ensure each group justifies its existence through regular use. If you find a group unused for months, consider whether it's really needed or should be dissolved.

Document Group Purpose Use the group description field to document why the group exists and what it's used for. "Acme corporate family - used for consolidated executive reporting" or "Q3 Healthcare Compliance - batch project creation for annual survey" helps future administrators understand the group's purpose and whether it should be maintained.

Review Group Membership Regularly Set a calendar reminder to review group memberships quarterly or annually. Corporate structures change through acquisitions, divestitures, and reorganizations. Industry groups shift as you take on new clients or complete engagements. Regular review ensures groups accurately reflect current reality rather than becoming stale snapshots of outdated relationships.

Use Consistent Naming Conventions Establish naming patterns for groups to make them easy to identify and understand. Perhaps groups representing corporate families use the parent company name ("Acme Group"), while industry groups use the industry name ("Healthcare Clients"), and geography-based groups use locations ("Northeast Region"). Consistent naming helps users quickly understand what each group represents.

Consider Team Visibility Carefully When using team restrictions on groups, think through the implications. Restricting a corporate family group to one practice team makes sense if that team manages the entire family. But if different teams handle different group members, restrictions might create confusion. Balance security and segmentation needs against operational flexibility.

Common Scenarios ​

Scenario: Corporate Family Management ​

Situation: Serving a parent company and five subsidiaries, all legally distinct but part of the same corporate family.

Solution: Create a client group named "[Parent Name] Corporate Family" containing all six entities. Use the group dashboard to see consolidated activity and revenue. When parent company executives request reporting on total engagement, generate reports filtered to this group showing aggregate statistics. Keep individual client billing separate for each legal entity, but provide grouped visibility for relationship management.

Scenario: Recurring Consortium Work ​

Situation: Twenty industry participants all need identical quarterly compliance reports.

Solution: Create a "Q3 Compliance Consortium" client group containing all twenty participants. When the quarter begins, create a single project using batch creation against the group. All twenty clients get identical "Q3 Compliance Report" projects created simultaneously, saving the time of creating each individually. Team members can then log time to their respective clients' projects, maintaining proper attribution while benefiting from standardized project structure.

Scenario: Industry Practice Reporting ​

Situation: Partners want to understand how much revenue comes from healthcare versus manufacturing versus technology clients.

Solution: Create industry-based client groups: "Healthcare Clients," "Manufacturing Clients," "Technology Clients." Assign clients to appropriate groups (clients can belong to multiple groups if needed). Generate revenue reports filtered by group to show aggregate performance by industry. Use these insights to guide business development priorities, staffing decisions, and practice area investment.

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Client groups simplify management of related clients. Start with natural relationship groups before creating internal categorization groups, and ensure each group serves a clear purpose.

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