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Author: Joel Kristenson
Last Updated: 2015-07-31
Overview
This article is primarily intended for our political customers who use Trail Blazer’s financial tools (the majority of our not-for-profit clients use QuickBooks for Nonprofits).
There were some major updates made in 2015 that affected the UI and flow for entering contributions in the PAC/Campaign product of Trail Blazer, it’s now much more similar to the nonprofit product’s input form. This article shows how to record a Refund on a contribution that has already been deposited.
Tip: If the campaigns treasurer(s) haven’t been fully trained in on how to effectively use the financial tracking tools in the database you can request to schedule 1-on-1 training, this page on our site shows some of the classes that may be of interest: http://trailblz.com/Support/Learning/Curriculums.aspx
Screenshot of Financial training options:
Steps
Important! Before a refund can be recorded on the contribution record, the contribution needs to be deposited.
From your Voters list you’ll need to run a search for the contributor whose contribution(s) you need to refund. Click on the name of the contact to open their record. In my example I queried by date range and searched for a contributor named “Vatican Abebe”.
Navigate to the Contribute tab and click the blue open link on the contribution record you need to record a refund for. In my example there was a single contribution of $600.00 with ID 11183.
Navigate to the Refund tab and click [+ New]. If the New button is greyed out it’s because the contribution record has not been recorded as deposited.
Fill out the refund form and click [OK] once complete. My example is below.
Click [Save and Close] to finish.
This will bring you back to the contributor’s record card, and can click the orange [Refresh] button to view the updated information. My example is below.
You’re now finished with all the steps.
The two images below show where the FEC report will display your Refund(s).
Img 1 – Detailed Summary Page of Disbursements
Img 2 – Summary Page of Receipts and Disbursements
Related Resources
Article: How to Deposit a Contribution
Article: Best Practices – FEC Reporting
Video: Contribution - Refund
Video: Expenses Reimburse Employee For Multiple Items
Video: Search for Missing Employer Occupation
Website: Trail Blazer Learning Resources - Curriculums
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