A candidate has asked for advice on how the outstanding checks should be treated for bookkeeping and reporting purposes. Candidates should establish a policy whereby outstanding checks will not be honored after a reasonable time period, such as, after 180 days or six months.
Banks are in accord with such policies.
In other words, banks that follow the Uniform Commercial Code will not honor or cash checks that are dated longer than six months. The committee should void checks written to vendors or other individuals such as campaign workers and not cashed within six months. Once a check is voided, the campaign spending report should reflect that there was no expenditure as previously reported. This can be accomplished by reporting on Schedule B of the Disclosure Report a negative expenditure with an explanation in the purpose column that a previous check as identified and previously reported as an expenditure has been voided. Since no expenditure, by the amount of the voided check was reported, the campaign committee should reflect an unpaid expenditure in Schedule E, or alternatively report the unpaid expenditure as a nonmonetary contribution.