Editing Official Receipts (section)

== Electronic Database ==

The ''Election Finances Act'' requires that any party running candidates in over 50% of Electoral Districts (EDs) during a General Election must implement an electronic database for recording donations and issuing Official Receipts, not just for the Party, but for Electoral District Associations (EDAs) and for candidates. The donations are deposited in the respective EDA and Candidate Campaign accounts, but must be recorded on the Party's DB. The Party's Chief Financial Officer (Treasurer) is responsible for issuing the Official Receipts for the EDAs and Candidates as well as for the Party.

In the 2014 General Election The Party ran candidates in 74 of the 107 EDs. The Party obtained and installed an add-on to CiviCRM (the DB being used by the Party to keep track of contacts and contributions) designed to print Charitable Receipts. It was modified to meet the specific requirements of the ''Act''. The Party demonstrated the system to representatives of Elections Ontario in September 2015 and it was approved in October 2015. It was used to generate Official Receipts for the Party for contributions made in 2015. None of our EDAs received any contributions in 2015, nor did our candidates in by-elections.

In 2016 the Party ran an active campaign in the September 1 by-election called for Scarborough-Rouge River. Elections Ontario advised that the "Contribution Type ID" must be 31 for donations to the campaign. A new Campaign Page was created in CRM with a Page Name of "Scarborough-Rouge River By-election." The Treasurer was able to select all contributions with this Page Name to update the Contribution Type ID to 31 and to produce individual Official Receipts for each donation. (Hopefully in future we will be able to have such campaign pages insert the correct codes.)

When a by-election or general election is called, the Party can create a "Campaign Page" which supporters may access to contribute to the Party's campaign fund. If an EDA wishes to solicit funds for their local campaign, than a campaign page may be created for the EDA. Campaign Pages for the Party or EDAs should not be activated or accessible to the public until the writ is dropped. The EDA may either set up their own PayPal account to receive donations, or make an agreement with the Party to have the funds transferred to the EDA's bank account. (as of 2016, none of our EDAs are active.)

Similar arrangements can be made if a candidate plans to solicit donations for his or her election campaign from family and friends. A candidate must not accept any donations until he or she is registered with Elections Ontario. Therefore the Campaign Page for a candidate must not be activated until the date the candidate is registered or the date the writ is issued, whichever is later.

Each Campaign Page must have a unique name. For example, "Barrie Libertarian EDA Election Campaign", or "John Doe Election Campaign."

In the past a bank account has not been opened for most candidates, and any one who wants to donate to a particular candidate's campaign has been advised to make a contribution to the Party and indicate the candidate's name on the memo line (or "Special Instructions" field to be added on the Campaign Page). Most candidate expenses are paid by the Party and transferred to the candidate's campaign when reporting to Elections Ontario.

If an EDA or candidate accepts cheques and deposits such donations directly into their bank account, each donations must be recorded on CRM. This can be done by the Party Treasurer on advice from the CFO for the EDA or candidate, or we may be able to establish CRM pages for the CFOs to enter donations directly into CRM for their respective EDA or Candidate.