Home → 360 → FEC Form 1 Compliance → FEC Form 1 Walkthrough
37.1. FEC Form 1 Walkthrough
FEC Form 1 is used for reporting the formation of an organization or campaign.
Accounts
Select the filing committee you would like to run the Statement of Organization (FEC Form 1) for. Additionally, you will need to select the bank accounts you wish to have reported to the Form 1.
Form Information
Type of Committee: Select the type of committee which accurately describes your organization. If you are unsure of which option to select, please consult your FEC analyst for that information. Type of Organization - Select the type of organization which accurately describes your organization. If you are unsure of which option to select, please consult your FEC analyst for that information.
Party Code: If your organization is a political party, then you will select your party code from the drop down box. If your code is not on the list, or you are not a political party, then you should leave as "NOT SPECIFIED".
Party Type: If your organization is a political party, then you will select your party type from the drop down box. If your code is not on the list, or you are not a political party, then you should leave as "NOT SPECIFIED".
Address is different then previously reported: Check off this box if you are amending a previous report to update your address.
Name is different then previously reported: Check off this box if you are amending a previous report to update your organization's name.
Leadership PAC: Check off this box if your organization is a Leadership PAC. If you are unsure whether or not your organization is a Leadership PAC, please consult your FEC analyst.
Amend a Previous Report: Check this box if you are amending a previous report you have filed with the FEC. If you check this box, you will need to fill in the additional fields below it:
- Amended Schedule ID: Here, you'll need to enter the ID that was assigned to the original filing that is being amended. The format of this field must be FEC-XXXXXX (e.g. FEC-123456). Please note that no matter how many times you amend your Form 1, you'll always want to use the original filing's ID - not the ID of the most recent amendment.
- Amendment Number: This data point is used to show the sequence of amendments. For instance, if this is the first time you're amending your Form 1, you'll want to enter a 1 for this field. The next time you go to amend (your second time amending), you'll want to enter a 2 and so on.
Change of Committee Email: Check off this box if you are amending a previous report to update your organization's email address.
Change of Committee URL: Check off this box if you are amending a previous report to update your organization's URL (or web address).
Lobbyist/Registrant PAC: Check off this box if your organization must identify itself as a registered lobbyist or lobbyist PAC.
Settings
Print Text to Report: If you need to attach a short text memo to your report, type that text directly into the box (do not copy and paste text from Microsoft Word, or other word processing applications). Lastly, make sure to check off the box.
Form Actions
Previous: Click on 'Previous' to go to the previous tab of the report, for instance, going from Form Information to Accounts.
Next: Click on 'Next' to go to the next tab of the report, for instance, going from Accounts to Form Information.
Generate Report: Click on 'Generate Report' to generate a report with the options and parameters selected in the different tabs of this particular compliance report. After clicking this button, the system will begin generating a draft of the report based on the parameters you have entered. If you stay on the page, you will land on the Results screen, where you can download each of the files associated with the report. In addition, you can click the red X button to return to the report's parameters screen.
Saved Reports
Load: This will allow you to load of the same parameters used for a previous draft, so you can generate a new one without having to re-select all of the parameters.
View Output: This drop-down will allow you to download any of the files associated with the report:
- Electronic: A .fec formatted file. This is the file type that is submitted to the FEC when you file the report.
- Validation: A .txt. formatted file. This will allow you to view all of the validation info related to the report; if your report has any warnings or errors, this file will include more details on what is triggering them.
- Viewable: A .pdf formatted file. This file can be used to review your report.
Filed: Click here when you are ready to submit your report.
- Committee ID: Enter your committee's FEC registration ID. This ID is usually in the format C#######.
- Password: Enter your filing password. If you are unsure of what your password is, you'll need to reach out to the FEC, as Aristotle does not store any filing passwords for security reasons.
- Email: Enter the email address that you want to receive the filing confirmation.
- Connection Type: You will generally want to leave this set to the TCP/IP option, as SSL is an older option that is seldom used.
- Upload FEC File: Clicking here will officially file the report.
Edit: This option will allow you to change the name seen in the Name column of the selected report. You can also manually mark the report as being filed on a specific date, if desired.
Delete: Clicking the red X in this column will delete that report. Please be aware that once a report is deleted, it cannot be easily recovered. Deleting a report from this page only deletes it within AI360 - doing so will not have any effect on the FEC side if the deleted report was previously filed.
FAQ
My report is receiving validation errors for missing committee info - where do I add that info so that it pulls to the report?
Most of the info that pulls to the Form 1 comes from the filing committee page, which you can get to by going to Settings > Filing Committees (old layout) or Compliance > Filing Committees (new layout). From there, you'll be able to view all of the filing committees you have on your database.
Once you click the View icon for a committee, the top portion of the page will include all of the committee's basic info like address and contact info. Info pertaining to bank accounts, individuals associated with the committee, or other organizations associated with the committee can be found under the Bank Accounts, Committee Staff, and Relationships sections, respectively.
My committee has a new treasurer and/or custodian of records - where can I update that info?
See the question above - the treasurer can be updated by going to the filing committee's page, and then going to the Committee Staff section. From there, you'll be able to add links to individuals. Before doing so, however, you'll need to make sure that you already have an existing profile for any individuals that you want to link to the filing committee.