Assistance Requests are those requests that have been made to the agents at ***your agency*** .... 

Referrals are those requests that were made at ***another agency*** and referred to your agency.

For example: John comes to "Agency A" and requests $10 of gasoline assistance and then refers to "Agency B" to actually provide the assistance. When Agency A generates an Assistance Requests report the $10 amount will be listed. If the staff at Agency B generates a "Referrals Report" the $10 will be listed in the report.