Overview

Campaigns often have to reimburse an individual who made purchases on behalf of the campaign. Due to changes in Florida law, not only does this reimbursement need to be recorded as an expense on the periodic financial reports, but the separate purchases made by the individual also need to be recorded as itemized distributions.

To do this, first enter the payment to the person you are reimbursing as an expense under their name. The "Type" of the expense must be listed as "Reimbursements". Then, enter each itemized expense you are reimbursing them for under the name of the business that they purchased from and link those back to the main reimbursement transaction.  For each of these itemized expenses, the "Account" must be set as "Other Distributions" and the "Type" set to "Reimbursements". When you hit "save" after entering an expense under the name of the business, you will be able to link that expenditure to the reimbursement expense you created under the name of the individual who made the purchase.

How-to Video

 

Step-by-Step Instructions

Establish your bank account settings:

1. Go to Main Menu -> Bank Accounts (under the Finance heading) and click "Edit" for your main checking account.
2. Set the "Election ID" field to your current election. (The Election ID is listed by date, so, for example, the 2016 general election shows as "20161108-GEN").
3. Save and click the "Bank Accounts" button to go back to your list of accounts.
   
4. Click "Add New".
5. Change the "Type" of account to "Other Distributions" using the drop-down menu.
6. Keep the "Display Name" as it appears, and set the "Election ID" just as you did with the checking account
7. Save and return the the main menu.

Enter the reimbursement expense:

1. Find the person you are reimbursing using either the search tool or your saved contacts (or create a new contact).
2. Select their Expenses by clicking on the red dollar sign icon or by clicking on the Finance tab of their voter file
   
3. Add a new expense as you normally would, but change the "Type" to "Reimbursements" using the drop-down menu.
4. Enter the total amount they are being reimbursed for.
   
5. Click "Save and Close"

Enter the itemized distributions as expenses:

1. Create a new contact for the business or organization purchases were made from (or find it using the search tool/contacts if you have already created it.)
2. Select their Expenses
3. Add a new expense as you normally would, but change the "Account" to "Other Distributions" (instead of your regular checking account) and change the "Type" to "Reimbursements"
4. Click "Save" (NOT "Save and Close")
5. Now on the list of all expenses for the business you have open, click "Edit" on the expense you just created (click on the small pencil icon). All possible reimbursement expenses will now appear as "Linkable Expenses" on the bottom half of the page under your recently entered distribution expense.
   
6. Click "link" on the appropriate reimbursement expense
   
7. Click "Save" or "Save and Close" and repeat as necessary for all remaining itemized distributions