This FAQ is intended to help treasurers, candidates, and committees understand how to accurately complete Indiana campaign finance reports using this system.
All campaign finance reporting in Indiana is governed by the 2026 Indiana Campaign Finance Reporting Manual, issued by the Indiana Secretary of State: Election Division. That manual is the authoritative source for statutory requirements, definitions, and reporting standards, and it should be consulted whenever questions of interpretation arise.
You can access the manual here: https://www.in.gov/sos/elections/files/2026-Campaign-Finance-Manual.FINAL.11-12-25.pdf
This FAQ is designed to explain how common reporting scenarios are handled within the software and how those workflows align with the requirements outlined in the manual.
A split transaction is used when a single bank transaction represents multiple underlying contributions or expenditures that must be reported separately for compliance purposes.
For example, if you receive $200 in cash from five different individuals at an event, your bank statement will show a single deposit of $1,000. However, campaign finance law requires that each individual contributor be reported separately. To disambiguate this deposit, click the Split icon next to the transaction to open five splits. You can then enter the individual contributor information and amounts that make up the total deposit.
The same concept applies to expenditures. If one withdrawal or check is used to pay multiple vendors, you should split that transaction so each vendor and amount is properly recorded.
Splits are used frequently. The system provides visual feedback to help you stay in balance:
This makes it easy to see which transactions still need attention.
If your reported balance does not match your bank balance and you are using a single campaign bank account, there are a few common causes to check first.
Start by confirming that the beginning of year cash on hand matches the ending balance from your prior report. If those figures do not align, the issue likely originated in a previous filing. In that case, you should consult with others involved in the campaign to determine the appropriate corrective action.
As a general rule, the bank statement should be treated as the ultimate source of truth. Your reporting should reconcile to the bank balance. If your system ledger does not match the bank, the discrepancy should be resolved in the ledger rather than forcing the bank balance to fit an incorrect report.
The bank feed and the ledger serve different but complementary purposes.
The bank feed pulls transactions directly from your connected campaign bank account. Its primary role is to reflect what actually cleared the bank so your records can stay aligned with the official bank balance. Think of the bank feed as the source of truth for cash movement.
The ledger is where reporting logic happens. Transactions imported from the bank feed appear in the ledger so you can add required compliance details such as contribution type, contributor information, purpose of expenditure, category, and splits. The ledger is what ultimately drives your campaign finance report.
When transactions are first imported from the bank feed, your ledger balance should match the bank balance. Any subsequent action in the ledger such as adding splits, creating manual entries, or recording in-kind contributions can temporarily move the ledger out of alignment until everything is fully accounted for.
This design is intentional. The system prioritizes keeping you anchored to the bank statement while giving you flexibility to properly disclose the underlying details required by law. If your ledger and bank balances do not match, it is usually a signal that a transaction still needs additional detail or that a required entry has not yet been completed.
In-kind contributions are non-cash contributions of goods or services provided to or for the benefit of a committee. These include items such as printed materials, advertising, lodging, transportation, use of equipment, or other services paid for by another person or entity. In-kind contributions do not include cash, checks, or promissory notes.
Indiana campaign finance law requires in-kind contributions to be reported using a double entry method.
This means the fair market value of the in-kind contribution must be reported twice:
For example, if an individual prints and distributes 1,000 posters featuring a candidate's name and image with the candidate's approval, and the fair market value of those posters is $250, the committee must report:
The purpose of this double entry is conceptual and accounting based. The law treats an in-kind contribution as if the committee received $250 in cash and then immediately spent that $250 to obtain the goods or services. Recording both sides ensures the committee's activity is fully disclosed without changing the actual cash balance.
Because no money moved through the bank account, in-kind contributions are entered directly into the ledger rather than coming from the bank feed. This allows the system to properly reflect the contribution and expenditure while keeping the bank balance unchanged.
In-kind contributions are generally itemized using the same thresholds and rules as other itemized contributions.
This program is new. While it has been carefully built and tested, there may be rare cases where a specific report page does not generate exactly as expected.
If this occurs, you may hold all reported values constant and independently reproduce that page of the report. This can be done by recreating the page using the same figures, whether typed or handwritten, and attaching it as part of your filing. The key requirement is that the values reported remain accurate and unchanged.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you encounter this situation, please email a description of the issue to [email protected] so it can be addressed and improved in future updates.