Dan,
I'll take an initial stab at this, then Support can add/subtract as they wish.
If your client lists have some common data elements & the client list relatively static, you could make each client it's own BO with each of those client BOs part of a Group. Initial states are set in the "Initial Value".
I would like to do this via a configuration file
If you mean that you would like to dynamically add / change clients and data elements via a configutation file, I don't believe that is possible.
Hope this helps.
Tom