Advantages of Campaign Finance E-Filing Versus Paper

ElectaFile Short Summary: E-Filing of Campaign Finance Reports is required for some committees and optional for others. There are at least three good reasons to e-file. On the other hand, old-fashioned paper presents some opportunities and challenges, too.

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We’ve written before about where and how to file campaign finance reports in North Carolina. Check those posts out—they are tremendous!

Today we’re writing briefly about some of the advantages of e-filing.

First, you can e-file using at least three different options. The State Board of Elections offers something it calls its campaign finance software that is built on the Microsoft Access platform. You can learn all you need to know about the State Board’s software here.

ElectaFile is also an option for easy e-filing. We built ElectaFile to help you and indirectly the professionals at the State Board of Elections by creating a 21st century user friendly platform that is accessible on the internet. We aim to be TurboTax for campaign finance reporting.

Still a third category of options are national fundraising software vendors who offer an e-filing tool in support of their more comprehensive solutions for fundraising. That’s where these national operations differ from ElectaFile—campaign finance reporting is but one of dozens of fundraising tools those national vendors offer. ElectaFile focuses on doing one thing exceptionally well.

However you choose to e-file, here are some advantages for why you should consider e-filing:

1. E-Data entry is faster. E-Filing solutions offer a software environment to enter data and return to it. You’re not chasing partially-completed forms covered with spilled coffee as the deadline approaches.

2. E-Data is retrievable. E-Filing data entry means the info you enter is accessible from more than one point—if you lose a form you’ve completed, you don’t have to start over.

3. Quality of Record Keeping Doesn’t Rise or Fall on Handwriting. No one’s penmanship is awesome anymore (except for dear Aunt Belle!). If you scribble through forms, you cannot quality control with ease because even you cannot read your own handwriting.

4. E-Data is Less Likely to be Flagged. If election professionals and auditors can read your data clearly and cleanly they are less likely to misunderstand your report. If they understand your report, they are less likely to flag issues for further clarification. Every wants a clean audit. Clean and clear data is the first step to clean audits.

   

5. The Board of Elections Will Love You Because Reading is Fundamental. Across the State thousands of campaign finance reports are filed in Raleigh and every county in the State. These reports must be reviewed by someone—if that someone can read your data quickly and easily, he or she will spend less time worrying about your report and more time trying to run elections and going after the people up to no good.

   

The ElectaFile Team writes this newsletter for the same reason we built ElectaFile. To help you. To demystify and de-risk campaign finance reporting so that more people will take the political plunge.

Whether you e-file with ElectaFile or the State Software or one of the national guys, you should e-file. If you do one thing in your campaign finance program, let e-fling be that thing. It makes all the difference in the world!

Check us out at ElectaFile.com 

PS: If you’ve read this and you’re still rolling with the paper, we still love you. You can use ElectaFile to track your receipts and expenditures for free.

What is ElectaFile.com? ElectaFile offers easy and affordable electronic "click to file" services with the NC State Board and County Boards. ElectaFile is web-based and accessible from Macs and PCs with an internet connection. You only pay a small fee if you file using ElectaFile. If you need a free consultation on your situation, please let us know. If ElectaFile can help, it will. We are not your treasurer or your lawyer. If you need a professional treasurer or an attorney, ElectaFile regularly refers folks to professionals on all sides of the aisle.