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3.7. Walkthrough: I don't see the Election Period needed for my transactions

When a new election cycle or new calendar year begins, you may see that the election period needed for that cycle/year does not appear as an option when you create transaction entries. This is simply because one has not been created yet - the ones you see are likely the default periods that were created when your database was first set up, or were created by a previous user.

 

Creating New Election Periods

New periods can be created at any time by taking the following steps:

1. Go to Settings > Add/Edit Election Periods

(Settings will be on the navigation bar if you are using the old layout)

2. Click the Add new period button at the bottom of the page.

3. Fill in the Text and Date fields.

• Text: This should be the type of election. The most common choices would be General, Primary, or Other, but the text can be tailored to your specific needs.
• Date: This should be the year of the election cycle/calendar year.

4. Click Insert. This button will save the period, and you can begin selecting it in your transaction data entry.

 

Optional Steps

5. Default Check box: checking off this box for a particular period will make it so that period is pre-selected whenever you create new transaction entries. If you expect most of your transactions will go to a specific election for the foreseeable future, you can mark this box.

For example, if you know most of your transactions for the next year or so will be for the Primary election, you can mark that one as the default so you won't need to select it every time.

6. Edit Period Limits: You can click here to adjust the amount that your committee can receive or disburse to a record. These limits are based on the type of record.

For example, if you can only receive $10,000 worth of any type of receipt from an individual in a single election period, you can set the receipt limit to that amount. If an individual has $10,000 worth of receipts already saved to their record for that period, and you attempt to add another, then the system will give you a limit warning, and you won't be able to save that transaction unless you return to the Periods page and raise that limit. This can be done for disbursements as well; if your committee can only donate up to a certain amount to another committee per period, then you can set that limit as well.

These limits allow you to more easily keep track of how much your committee has received or given for compliance purposes.