Author: Benjamin Katz

Using the Auto-Reconcile Historic Transactions feature

If you just came over to ISP from a different system, you might be concerned about your first bank reconciliation in ISP. It might not be practical to go back several years and reconcile your data in ISP month by month. 

If you have never done a reconciliation before and you have over 200 unreconciled transactions, you will see a button called Auto-Reconcile Historic Transactions at the bottom of the page. Please note that this button will only show if both criteria are met. 

The Auto-Reconcile Historic Transactions button assumes that your data is correct up to the date you specified. For your first reconciliation to work smoothly, go back to the bank statement where all transactions are deposited. In other words, go back to the bank statement where you don’t have any outstanding checks. Going back three months should work most of the time. If you can auto-reconcile through that date, then you should only have a couple of months to manually reconcile. 

What if everything appears to have cleared, but my bank statement doesn’t match the Register in ISP?

In this case, add a bookkeeping transaction. Finding the source of the discrepancy would be ideal, but if that’s not practical, add a bookkeeping transaction.

What if I have an uncashed check or two?

Temporarily change the date of the uncashed check to after the date of your reconciliation. Then use the Auto-Reconcile button, then change the date back to the correct date. The point here is to remove it from the Auto-Reconcile window, reconcile, then change the date back.

If you need to do a mass refund, potentially because you or your client decided not to run, you can use the Bulk Refunds Quick Import format to import refunds into ISP.

1. Under the Reports menu, select Financial.
2. In the Report drop-down menu, select the Transactions report.
3. Put Monetary Contribution in the Transaction Type box.
4. Add Columns for Transaction ID, Amount, and Date.
5. Hit Generate at the bottom and export to Excel.
6. Do the appropriate math to determine how much to refund each person.
7. Install the Bulk Refunds format. On the Quick Imports page, underneath the Tools menu, click Add New Import Format in the bottom left. Locate the format titled Bulk Refunds and click on it.
8. Using this format, import the Excel file you created. The only columns that matter here are Transaction ID, Amount, and Date. Any other columns will be ignored.
9. After the refunds are imported, navigate to Print Checks under the Accounting menu and print your checks.

The Tax1099 integration isn’t an integration in our traditional sense, because you don’t install it on the Integrations > Add/Remove page.

This integration works in conjunction with the IRS FORM 1099-MISC/NEC report on the Reports > Compliance Tools page. After you generate the report, click the white print/export button at the bottom. In the menu that pops up, you’ll see an option for a Tax1099.com Export.

After downloading the 1099 export from ISP, navigate to your Tax1099 account and upload the file there. From there, you can send them to your recipients and the IRS.

Filing with New Jersey is done via several imports. Here’s some basic steps to get your started.

1. Login to ELEC

2. Select the Report Period
3. Go to Quick Links > Contribution Data Upload Manager
   • If there are Monetary Contribution transactions to be imported, select Monetary on the Upload Item Type drop down
   • Click on Select New Contribution CSV File button
   • Find and select the csv file downloaded from ISP that starts with MonetaryContrib
   • Review the imported data
   • Click on “Commit Batch” if all the data looks correct
   • If there are Inkind Contribution transactions to be imported, select In-Kind on the Upload Item Type
   • Click on Select New Contribution CSV File button
   • Find and select the csv file downloaded from ISP that starts with In-Kind
   • Review the imported data
   • Click on “Commit Batch” if all the data looks correct
4. Go to Quick Links > Expense Data Upload Manager
   • If there are Expense transactions to be imported, select Expenses, Other-Exp, Cont-Made-to-Others, or Exp-Made-on-Behalf on the Upload Item Type drop down. For Expense SubPayees, see below
   • Click on Select New Expense CSV File button
   • Find and select the csv file downloaded from ISP that starts with Expense, OtherExp, ContMadeToOthers or ExpMadeOnBehalf as matches the Upload Item Type drop down
   • Review the imported data
   • Click on “Commit Batch” if all the data looks correct
   • If there are splits of Expenses, Other-Exp or Exp-Made-on-Behalf, first ensure all other expense CSVs are uploaded first
   • Select Expense SubPayees on the Upload Item Type drop down
   • On the Existing Expense Items List, find and click Select next to the whole (parent) transaction
   • Find and select the csv file downloaded from ISP that starts with SubPayees and has the whole (parent) transaction name, date, and amount
   • Click on “Commit Batch” if all the data looks correct
5. The transactions on the following schedules need to be hand-entered:
   • Schedule 3 (Dividends/Interest) – hand-entered under Contributions
   • Schedule 4 (Refunded Disbursements / Reimbursements to Committee) – hand-entered under Expenses
   • Schedule 5 (Loans Received) – hand-entered under Contributions
   • Schedule 6 (Refunded Contributions) – hand-entered under Contributions
   • Splits of Schedule 9 (Other Disbursements) – hand-entered per corresponding Expense
   • Splits of Schedule 11 (Expenses Made on Behalf) – hand-entered per corresponding Expense
   • Payments of Standard Accrued Expenses, Other Disbursement Accrued
     Expenses, and Accrued Expenses Made on Behalf from prior periods –
     hand-entered per corresponding transaction
   • Payments of Loans Received – hand-entered per corresponding Loan Received transaction
6. Review and File
   • After you’ve imported and/or hand-entered all of your transactions, in ELEC go to e-File > e-File Report
   • At the bottom of the page, click on View Report to preview your report
   • If you approve of the report, click on Certify to certify your report
   • Click on File with ELEC to file your report

To the right of a transaction on the Register or the entity’s record, you’ll see a hotdog menu. To create a duplicate transaction, click that menu and click the Create Duplicate Transaction option.

This feature is useful not only for creating duplicate transactions, but also for using the duplicate transaction as a basis for creating a new transaction. 

When you create a duplicate Expense, if the amount, vendor, and invoice number in the Check Note or
Internal Note field match, the system will warn you that you might be creating an invoice that could be a duplicate of another. If it is truly an exact duplicate, you can ignore the warning. In many cases, you may need to change something about the duplicate transaction to distinguish it from the original.

The short answer is no, we don’t support the IRS Form 990. However, many of our Financial Reports contain most or all of the financial information an accountant would need to prepare the appropriate Form 990. The following Financial Reports will be very useful in preparing a Form 990:

• Detailed Financials report
• Profit & Loss report
• Net Worth report
• Cash Flow report

You can read more about these Financial Report options here.

Examples of necessary data that isn’t in ISP:

• Number of voting members of the governing body
• Number of independent voting members of the governing body
• Total number of individuals employed in a calendar year
• Total number of volunteers

If you are experiencing issues with your ActBlue integration, check below to see if your issue is mentioned and, if so, how to fix it.

I just set up my ActBlue integration, but no transactions are coming over to ISP.

Navigate to the ActBlue page underneath the Integrations menu and verify the ActBlue Entity ID is correct. 

You may not have contacted ActBlue to complete the integration on their end. If you haven’t done so, contact them and have them confirm that ISP endpoints are enabled.

I emailed ActBlue and had them set up the integration with ISP, but no transactions are coming over to ISP.

You may not have installed the integration in ISP. Navigate to Integrations > Add/Remove Integrations , and locate the ActBlue integration. If you have any trouble setting up your integration, you can find more information here.

I’m receiving duplicate transactions through the integration.

You will need to contact ActBlue and make them aware of the situation. When you contact them, provide an example transaction (name, date, amount) that came over to ISP twice. They will be able to fix the integration and prevent duplicates from being sent.

Still having problems?

If you’re still having an issue that isn’t addressed by this help file, email Support with an example transaction that you’ve received via ActBlue since fully setting up the integration. We can look at our Logs and diagnose the issue.

Below are deadlines for South Carolina compliance report filing.

The Filing Deadline information provided here is offered only as a reference aide. The provided deadline information may contain inaccuracies and may not include all special elections or deadlines. For agency specific details please visit the South Carolina State Ethics Commission website.

Candidate

• 07/10/2025: SC Bulk Import (Q2 Campaign Disclosure)
• 10/10/2025: SC Bulk Import (Q3 Campaign Disclosure)
• 01/10/2026: SC Bulk Import (Q4 Campaign Disclosure)

Non-Political Committee

• 07/10/2025: SC Bulk Import (Q2 Campaign Disclosure)
• 10/10/2025: SC Bulk Import (Q3 Campaign Disclosure)
• 01/10/2026: SC Bulk Import (Q4 Campaign Disclosure)

Party

• 07/10/2025: SC Bulk Import (Q2 Campaign Disclosure)
• 10/10/2025: SC Bulk Import (Q3 Campaign Disclosure)
• 01/10/2026: SC Bulk Import (Q4 Campaign Disclosure)

Political Committee

• 07/10/2025: SC Bulk Import (Q2 Campaign Disclosure)
• 10/10/2025: SC Bulk Import (Q3 Campaign Disclosure)
• 01/10/2026: SC Bulk Import (Q4 Campaign Disclosure)

You’re able to add Filing Deadlines found in ISP to your own digital calendar with our Calendar Feed tool.

To see more information about South Carolina compliance report filing with ISP, please visit our South Carolina Filing and FAQ Resources page.

The FEC has certain character limits in place when it comes to adding notes to transactions. When adding a transaction in ISP, you will see a Compliance Note field. The character limit for this field is 100. However, there is an existing code that will create an additional TEXT entry for the transaction if the Compliance Note character count is greater than 100 characters but not greater than 4,000 characters.

Alternatively, you can add a note for a transaction/multiple transactions in the Note box on the Compliance Reports page when you are setting up your report parameters. Entering a note in this field will also create an additional TEXT entry for the transaction if the Note box character count is not greater than 20,000 characters.

Accrued Expense and Loan Balance Reduction transactions produce an auto-generated TEXT that says, “Outstanding Loan/Debt Amount of {Original Amount} was reduced in the amount of {AE/Loan Balance Reduction Amount} by forgiveness.” This is an FEC requirement.

Character Limit on a FEC Form 99

The Form 99, used to submit a letter to the FEC, has a 20,000-character limit

Compliance Notes are useful for providing additional context on transactions. This field isn’t required when entering transactions, but we recommend entering a Compliance Note for every Expense you enter into ISP. This is to prevent your agency from asking any questions about what that money was spent on. 

If a particular transaction has a Support/Oppose Memo, we will pull the Compliance Note from the S/O Memo onto the compliance report. If there is no Compliance Note on the S/O Memo, we pull the Compliance Note from the parent transaction. If you’d prefer the Compliance Note on the parent transaction to pull to the report, delete the Compliance Note you have on the S/O Memo.

There is a 100-character limit on Compliance Notes per transaction. If a Compliance Note contains more than 100 characters, an additional TEXT entry for the transaction will be created on FEC reports.