Reporter 5 is client-based software for PCs.  OCPF provides Reporter 5 free of charge to help candidates and committees prepare campaign finance reports for electronic filing with our office or for paper filing with local election officials.

All candidates and committees can use Reporter 5 for their campaign finance reporting needs.

Reporter 5 is for use on PC-based computers.  There is no similar application for Mac computers.  Mac users can either run Reporter 5 using PC emulation software or can use the Web Reporter online reporting system.

Before you can electronically file, you need to:

• Organize your committee with OCPF to receive a CPF ID number and password;
  
  
• Download Reporter 5 to your PC-based computer;
  
  
• Run the Reporter 5 installation wizard and committee information set-up.

Municipal filers, who organize with their local election officials and file paper reports, do not need a CPF ID and password to use Reporter 5 unless they want to activate the online backup feature.  If you wish to take advantage of this feature, please contact OCPF Technical Support for assistance.

Reporter 5 has campaign management and data analysis features in addtion to its campaign finance reporting functions.  Some of the extra features include:

• Campaign management tools - Reporter stores and compiles campaign management data so that committees can generate a variety of fundraising and spending analysis reports.  Reporter can also generate customizable files to support mail merges for a committee's correspondence with its contributors.
  
  
• Database management tools - Committees can perform report and record analyses to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the data entered into the Reporter application.  For example, the Bank Reconciliation tool can be used to reconcile a committee's monthly bank statements with the data entered into Reporter's database.
  
  
• Disaster recovery - Reporter users now have the option to backup their data online or to restore their data from reports that have been previously been e-filed on OCPF's Electronic Filing System (EFS).