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Author: Joel Kristenson
Last Updated: 2015-04-17
Overview
This article walks through the steps to create an invoice, and make a payment against it using the new financial system released 4/12/2015.
It also covers the steps to create a refund, and the corresponding deduction.
This article is primarily intended for political campaigns, but nonprofits using the financial tools can use this as a guide with the new changes that were released 4/12/2015.
Steps
Follow Application Menu > Financial > Disbursements > Payees (Invoicing)
Query for the Payee and open their record, or create a new payee if they don’t yet exist. (I opted to open a pre-existing payee record for this example.)
Click on the payee record to open it. (In my example I used Trail Blazer).
Click [+ New] under the Invoices tab, or if you’ve previously created an invoice, click on the underlined blue Invoice ID to open that invoice record. (In my example I created a new invoice record.)
Fill out all the information related to the invoice i.e. Date, Amount, Expense Category, Expenditure Type, Election, Event (if applicable), and a description.
If you have questions on how to categorize an invoice you should contact your FEC analysts (800-424-9530).
Below is my example invoice, click Save when finished.
Next click the [+ New] button under the Payments tab.
Fill out all of the information for your payment record, click [Save and Close] once complete.
At this point you’re finished, you’ll of course need to go through the steps again if you are breaking up the invoice into multiple payments.
Tip: You can run reports for payments, and invoices from their corresponding lists in the database:
Continue reading to learn how to create a Refund and corresponding Deduction.
If one of your Payees refunds part or all of a payment, open the Payee record and click on the Invoice ID. (In this example I used Trail Blazer as the Payee, and clicked on Invoice ID 1678.)
Then click the [+ New] button under the Refunds tab.
Fill out the information related to the refund, save and close when you’re finished.
(In my example I recorded the refund as a full refund, and the date it occurred was still in the same reporting period as the payment that was made initially.)
Next you need to create a Deduction to offset the refund so your finances balance out correctly, and so that the data reflects on your FEC (if federal campaign) reports correctly.
Navigate to the Deductions tab and click [+ New].
Fill out the form, normally the deduction date and amount would be the same as the refund date/amount.
Make sure you have the correct election cycle selected (it will default to the election that the invoice occurred on), and add a description.
Save and close once complete.
The last tab on the invoice record is Summary where you can see all the details related to the invoice:
Related Resources
Article: How to Enter an Invoice for a Payee
Article: How to Enter a New Payee
Video: Enter Invoice and Make Immediate Payment
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