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The demands and needs for cost information in psychiatric contexts have multiplied considerably in recent years, but have often been frustrated by inadequate data. The typical costs data available to the policy maker, manager, clinical professional or researcher have been dominated until recently by age-old accounting practices and line management arrangements, and constrained by fragmentation of responsibility. Most limiting of all, costs data have rarely been used in taking decisions about individual cases. In considering the demands and needs for costs in psychiatry, this chapter describes a research instrument-the Client Service Receipt Inventory (CSRI)-which has been developed and extensively applied in order to meet some of these needs. The chapter includes illustrations of applications of data recorded using the CSRI.