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25.15. How do I enter in Independent Expenditures where the payment date is before the dissemination date?

In a case where an Independent Expenditure is paid before the dissemination date, the data entry is a little different. It will require to enter in a regular expense on the first report, and then create an independent expenditure and negative offset on the second report. 

The data entry steps are outlined below:

1. Create a regular Operating Expenditure to the IE Payment Vendor on the payment date. (Do not use the IE reporting code). For this example, in the screenshots, it is entered in with the payment date that would appear on the first report.

2. Create an Independent Expenditure with the IE reporting code, dissemination date, and payment date. This transaction will appear on the second report.

3. To avoid inflating your operating expenditure totals, create a negative normal expense. Do not use the IE reporting code. Also, use the same date as the IE date of dissemination for the negative expense. This transaction will also appear on the second report.

In the example below, the committee paid $50,000 for an IE to Organization. This was paid before the dissemination date. So a regular expense is entered in that would be reported on report 1 (the November Monthly) in this example.

An independent expenditure is created with all of the normal data entry except this will appear on report 2 (the December monthly). 

Alongside that Independent Expenditure, a negative offset is created so the totals are not inflated. This is a regular negative expense with no IE reporting code that will appear on report 2.