Author: Benjamin Katz

Can I file to MI directly from ISP?

Sadly, you cannot. You must generate your report, then download a group of .csv files that are uploaded into the state’s system, which is commonly known as MiTN (Michigan Transparency Network).

There is quite a bit of setup before the first import can be done on the new system. Please be sure this is all complete by following the steps laid out on the state’s site.

NOTE: We have found it is best to use full screen in order to best navigate the MiTN.

How are entity uploads handled?

With Michigan e-filing, you’ll have to upload a list of entities separate from the list of transactions. You then upload the list of transactions, which will be linked on the back end through the Entity ID our system provides. 

Michigan does not support uploading an entity more than once. Because of this, it is paramount that you mark reports as filed. This ensures that previously uploaded entities do not get uploaded again.

Once you upload for a particular reporting period, you cannot upload for that period again. This means partial, early uploads are not possible.

How are entity updates handled?

How are work addresses handled for unemployed individuals?

Unlike the old system, Michigan no longer wants placeholder addresses for unemployed individuals. If you have existing placeholders in ISP that need to be removed, please email support@ispolitical.com with the details so we can take care of those for you.

In addition, we will not pull an address marked as Work if the Individual’s occupation is one of the following:

• Not Employed
• N/A
• Unemployed
• Retired
• Student
• Self
• Homemaker
• Volunteer

How do I associate a transaction with a Fundraiser?

There are two ways to associate a Fundraiser with a transaction. Either one of these options must be done before generating a Compliance Report.

First Option:

1. Login to MiLogin and select the appropriate committee
2. On the dashboard, select the Fundraisers option
3. Click on Add Fundraiser, fill out the fields as appropriate, and click on Save
4. Click on the newly added Fundraiser from the list, and make note of the Fundraising Event Sequence Number. It will likely be two numbers, a dash, and six more numbers (example: 00-123456)
5. In ISP, navigate to Tools > Events (If you don’t have events in your database, please see this Events page for additional information.)
6. Click on +Add Event at the bottom of the page. Fill out the appropriate information, including the entering the Fundraising Event Sequence Number into field Agency Assigned Identifier. Click on Add Event.
7. You will now see the event drop down on transactions. Select the event if the transaction is associated with a fundraiser, or leave blank.

Second Option (basically the reverse!):

1. In ISP, navigate to Tools > Events (If you don’t have events in your database, please see this Events page for additional information.)
2. Click on +Add Event at the bottom of the page. Fill out the appropriate information. Click on Add Event.
3. You will now see the event drop down on transactions. Select the event if the transaction is associated with a fundraiser, or leave blank.
4. When you are preparing to file your report, login to MiLogin and select the appropriate committee
5. On the dashboard, select the Fundraisers option
6. Click on Add Fundraiser, fill out the fields as appropriate, and click on Save
7. Click on the newly added Fundraiser from the list, and make note of the Fundraising Event Sequence Number. It will likely be two numbers, a dash, and six more numbers (example: 00-123456)
8. Back in ISP, navigate to Tools > Events once again
9. Click on the corresponding event, then click on the small green triangle to the upper right of the event name, and add the Fundraising Event Sequence Number into field Agency Assigned Identifier. Click on Update Event.

These steps must be taken before your report is generated for filing.

MiTN Status Page for Outstanding/Resolved Bugs

https://www.michigan.gov/sos/elections/disclosure/mitn-information

QuickBooks is not designed for campaign finance. If you used another political finance software along with QuickBooks, we would rather import the data from the competing software. If you only used QuickBooks, take the following steps to get your data to us for import.

When you migrate to ISP from QuickBooks, it’s important that you send us the correct data for import. In order to import your data, we need two things:

1. General Ledger – include as many columns as possible and export the entire time period. The more data, the better.
2. Chart of Accounts – this includes Financial Account and Budget Category info.

While the two items above will likely be good enough for an import, contribution data may need to be sent separately. Unfortunately, Quickbooks normally only has deposit batch information and not individual contributions. If you used a credit card processor to receive donations, please export your data from there and send to us.

Once you have everything exported and ready for import, and assuming you qualify for support coverage, send it to us at support@ispolitical.com.

There are a few things to consider when it comes to Accrued Expenses with Support/Oppose Memos:

1. Who the Support/Oppose Memo is for – this will dictate what line the transactions will appear on: Federal Candidate/Committee on Line 23, Independent Expenditure (IE) on Line 24 / Schedule E, Non-Federal and/or Carey Candidate/Committee on Line 29, 100% FEA on Line 30
2. If there is an associated payment in the period or not

If there is no associated payment:

• The total amount of the (parent) Accrued Expense will appear on Schedule D
• A non-cash impact transaction with the Candidate/Committee information for Non-Independent Expenditures will appear on the corresponding line (Line 23, 29 or 30) for each Support/Oppose Memo with memo text that says “Contribution Made Details of an Unpaid Debt – See Sch. D for further information”
• A non-cash impact transaction with the Candidate/Committee information for Independent Expenditures will appear on Line 24/Schedule E with memo text that says “Details of an Unpaid Debt-See Sch D for additional information”

If there is an associated payment:

• The payment amount and any outstanding amount will be reflected on Schedule D
• The actual Accrued Expense Payment amount will pull to the appropriate line (Line 23, 24, 29 or 30 as appropriate)
• A corresponding non-cash impact transaction with the Candidate/Committee information in the full amount of the Support/Oppose Memo will also pull to the appropriate line with memo text that says “Additional Contribution Made information related to Debt Payment in the period” (or “Additional Independent Expenditure Made information related to Debt Payment in the period” for Line 24 / IEs)

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 set up your ISP webhooks in your ActBlue account. See detailed steps here.

I emailed ActBlue and asked them to set up the integration, but no transactions are coming into the ISP account.

ActBlue updated their process and doesn’t set up the integration webhooks. The webhook endpoints and credentials are available in the ActBlue Settings page in your ISP account. You add the webhooks in your ActBlue account. You can find more information here.

I’m receiving duplicate transactions through the integration.

You will need to contact ActBlue and inform them 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 still have an issue not addressed by this help file, email Support with an example transaction you’ve received via ActBlue since fully setting up the integration. We can look at our Logs and diagnose the issue.