Coaching notes have a strange life. You write them for the next call, not for a file, and the real test comes months later: can you find what a client said at the start? Most advice about coaching session notes is about how to write them. This page is about finding them again.
Who this is for, and who it is not
This is for coaches in private practice — life, wellness, health, career — who work with the same people for months and want to remember what was said, not only that a call happened. If your notes are spread across a notebook, a document and three chat threads, this is built for you.
It is not for licensed psychotherapists. If HIPAA covers your practice — broadly, if you bill for health services electronically — your software must sign a Business Associate Agreement. We do not sign one, and we do not claim HIPAA compliance. The same goes for counsellors whose notes may one day be read by an insurer, a court or a licensing board: you want records built for that, and SimplePractice is built for it.
Notes you will actually reread
How do you take notes during a coaching session? Mostly, you don’t: a client can tell the moment you go from listening to writing. The notes that last are the ones made in the ten minutes after the call, while the exact words are still there.
So you just talk. Press the microphone and say what happened — what they came in with, the sentence that shifted something, what they said they would do before the next call. Moments later it is text on their timeline.
When you want it organised, ask for a structured version. It comes back tidy, with what you actually said kept beside it, and every earlier version is kept. There is no form with goal, action and obstacle fields. Whatever framework you use, the note follows your words, not a template.
The line through months
“How do you keep track of notes for each client?” is the real question, and in most practices the honest answer is: badly. A note in a document named after the date is findable for a week. A note on the client’s own page, in order, is findable in a year.
Here every note belongs to a client. Their page is one timeline of sessions, notes and form answers, with search across it. Type the word they used for the habit they wanted to stop, and find the call where they first said it.
There is also Client Journey: a short story of each client’s path, written by AI from your notes — where they started, what changed, what came back. It is built only from what you wrote, and it is written for you, the way your own notes are. When a client asks what they said at the very beginning, you will not be guessing.
What you ask before the first call
Most coaches ask something before the first session: what brings you here, what would make this worth it, what have you tried already. Here that is a form you build yourself and send as a link. The client answers without an account, and the answers land on their timeline before you have met, so it starts with what they hope to get from coaching.
Keep different forms for a discovery call and a six-month programme. If you take bookings publicly, the same questions can sit on the booking page: the client sees times in their own timezone, picks one, answers, and is done. No password, no app, and they cancel from the email they already have.
What we do not do
Three things coaches ask for are not here, and we would rather say so up front.
Sharing notes with a client. "Should a coach take and share notes?" is a question about how you work, and no software should answer it for you. Some coaches send a summary after every call; some keep notes as their own working memory, because knowing a client will read them changes what gets written. Both are defensible, and here notes stay yours: if you want a client to have a summary, you write one and send it the way you send everything else.
Video calls. You meet where you already meet — Zoom, Meet, a phone — and come here afterwards. A tool that records calls and writes notes from them is a different product with different consent questions, and we did not build one.
HIPAA. No BAA and no compliance claim. What we do instead: your records live on our own servers in the EU, on an encrypted volume, and no recording of a call or a dictation is ever stored. You can take everything you wrote out in one file whenever you want — clients, sessions, notes with their history, form answers, consent records.
What it costs to try
The free plan does not expire and does not ask for a card. It has limits, not an end date, and the limits are on the pricing page next to the paid plan. A coach with a handful of long-term clients can stay on it for good; one with a full roster cannot, and that is the honest line between them.
Try it after your next call. Press the microphone and say what happened, the way you would tell a coach you trust. Tomorrow, read it back. If it sounds like you, you will know what the rest of it is for.
Why it works this way is in why we built it and session notes without the clinic. The short version: notes for your own memory, not for an insurer.