To file electronically in Michigan, the filer must first register and receive approval from Michigan. Electronic filing will not be permitted until this registration and approval process is complete.
The new MiTN system was created by Michigan and the steps below are the steps that users will need to follow in order to file a Michigan report.
Michigan Filing Checklist
- Make sure all MI PACs have Committee IDs
- Make sure all candidate committees have a County populated
- Export Data from Quorum. Need EXPN, RCPT, and NAMES files.
- Import Names file into MI’s system
- Create the Filing
- Import Receipts (RCPT) once Names upload has completed successfully
- Add Campaigns for MI Candidate Committees
- If there are new campaigns, update the MI campaign ID in the transaction in the Add Campaign file -
- Click on File again Re-export files out of Quorum PAC
- Import EXPN file
Michigan Committee IDs and County fields
Any Michigan PAC Organization will need to have a Filer ID and all candidate committees and ballot measures will need to have a County. Please make sure that data is populated before clicking on File in Quorum / Compliance reports. You will receive errors if those fields are not populated when uploading your Contacts in MiTN.
Searching for Michigan PAC Organizations in Quorum
Go to PAC Organizations and click on Advanced Search
The easiest way to see if you are missing data is to add the following columns to your result set:
- PAC Organization Name
- Limit Type
- Candidate Name
- Filer ID
- County
Search Criteria
- State: MI
- Date: Reporting Period (i.e 1/1/2025 - 4/20/2025)
- Candidate Committees will need both Filer ID and County
- State PACs will just need Filer ID
Searching Michigan State Committees on Michigan’s site
Click on the link below to search for Michigan State Committees
https://mi-boe.entellitrak.com/etk-mi-boe-prod/page.request.do?page=page.miboeCommitteePublicSearch
- Copy the Committee ID and paste it in the Filer ID field in the PAC Organization
- Click on the committee in the Michigan search link above to see the County.
- Paste the County value in the PAC Organization County field.
Exporting Data from Quorum PAC
To file a report in Quorum, the user should go to the Compliance Reports section of the platform. From there, click on File to export the necessary files for uploading to MiTN.
Save the files in a folder on your computer.
Files: These are the files that Michigan supports at this time:
Names: This file contains your Individuals and PAC Organizations for the filing period.
NOCampaigns - this file contains the campaigns that need to be entered in MiTN.
RCPT - This file contains your receipts
EXPN- This file contains your disbursements
Note: Users may open the Campaign file in Excel to view which campaigns need to be added. However, all other Michigan files (e.g., RCPT, Names, and EXPN) should not be opened in Excel. Opening these files in Excel can cause reformatting—specifically, Excel may remove empty columns, which misaligns the fields and results in files that do not comply with Michigan’s filing requirements. If you need to view the data in the RCPT, Names, EXPN files, you can open them in Notepad.
Example of the issue of opening the file in Excel before Uploading
If you import transactions and you see a bunch of errors at the bottom of the MiTN mapping, than the file was opened and you need to generate a new file in Quorum.
Logging into MiTN
- Log in to MiTN
Click on your Committee to view your PAC data
Importing Names in MiTN
Click on Contacts
Click on Upload Contacts
Click on “Choose File” and select the “Names” file from the files that were downloaded from Quorum PAC when you clicked on “File”.
Click on “Create Import”
The Contact records are now being validated. Click on Refresh to get the status of your import.
The Status field will let you know if there are issues with the import. If the status is “Pending User Correction”, you will need to click inside the row to see the errors.
Errors
- MiTN will display a list of errors for each row where there is an issue. Click on the “Hard Required Fields” to see the error
- File will not be processed until ALL errors are fixed / removed
| Field | Error | Note | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unique Sequence Number | A contact exists for this committee with that ID | Scroll down and click on “Delete Row” at the bottom of the page. | |
| County | The Committee is required to provide the following information. | County is not required if the error also says “a Request for Clarification might be needed.” | Add a County or Ignore if not required |
| Valid values include only MI counties | Make sure the County name is correct | ||
| Committee ID | No matching record for committee ID. The provided ID does not correspond to any existing committee | If you receive this error, make sure to update the PAC Organization in Quorum with the correct Filer ID for future reference. | Add the correct Committee ID |
| Zip | Zip Code must be 5 or 9 digits. | Fix zip code | |
| Payee_USN | Contact does not exist with that value |
If you receive this error, you will need to go to the Names file and find this committee then copy the committee into a new file. Next, go to Contacts, click on Upload Contacts and select the file you created that just has the missing committee. Click on Create Import to send the request to MiTN.
Also, if the client added the Individual or the PAC organization manually (not via the Names file), then all subsequent transactions will need to use the Michigan ID. If the client gets an error on this field, check the Contacts to see if this person/committee exists and if so, you will need to copy the Michigan id into this field in the error record. |
Add Campaigns for MI Candidate Committees
Whenever a new combination of a Michigan committee and election is used in a reporting period, a corresponding campaign must be created in MiTN. To assist with this, a new file (NO Campaign) will appear in the files the user receives when they click on File for the Michigan report in Quorum. This file contains all the new campaign combinations that need to be added to MiTN.
The fields included in the NO Campaign file are:
- Committee Name (Column A)
- PAC Limit Type (Column B)
- Legislator First Name (Column C )
- Legislator Last Name (Column D )
- Office (Column E )
- District (Column F )
- CommitteeID (Column G )
- County (Column H)
- Election (Column I )
- TransactionID (Column J )
- PACOrganizationID (Column K )
- ElectionID (Column L )
- User should add the MI Campaign ID in column M to record Michigan’s campaign ID
Use the NO Campaign file to identify which campaigns need to be added to MiTN. Once you’ve created each campaign in MiTN and received the Michigan Campaign ID, return to Quorum and enter that ID in the MI Campaign ID field for the corresponding Transaction ID listed in the file.
To streamline the process, consider adding all missing campaigns in MiTN first, recording each campaign ID in the file( see Column M). You can then return to Quorum and update the transaction listed in Column I with their corresponding MI Campaign IDs.
Once the MI Campaign ID is entered for the transactions listed in column J in the NO Campaigns file, the system will automatically use the same campaign ID for all subsequent Michigan expenditures involving that combination for this filing and any future filing.
Adding New Campaigns into MiTN
Go to MiTN - Campaigns
Click on New Campaign
Click on “Candidate”
Click on Office Sought
Select the Name of the Office
Name field
Enter in the Name of the Committee that you entered in the Names file
Type in the name of the committee and a list of possible committees will appear below the Name field.
If you do not see the committee listed then it is more than likely one of the following issues:
- The wrong committee ID was used when creating the Contact record. The only way to fix this is to delete the contact record for the committee and then re-import the committee with the correct committee id using the Contact upload. Make sure to change the Filer ID in the PAC Organization in Quorum so this issue does not happen again.
- The Contact does not exist. Make sure the Contact exists by going to Contacts and searching for the record.
If you're unable to resolve this issue on your own, please reach out to Quorum Support or contact Michigan for assistance. This issue may require their help to identify the appropriate solution.
All other Campaign fields
- Support or Oppose - Client will select either Support or Oppose
- County of Residence - data is in Column H in the NO Committee file
- District or Jurisdiction - data is in Column F in the NO Committee file
- Population - Client will need to know this information
- Election Date - Election is in Column I in the NO Committee file
- Election Cycle - Client will need to fill this in
Adding the MI Campaign ID into Quorum
- Log into Quorum
- Go to Transactions - Advanced Search
- Paste the transaction id (Column J) in the NO Campaign file into the transactionid field
- Edit the transaction and add the new campaign ID that you created in MiTN to the MI CampaignID field in the disbursement.
Export files again out of Quorum PAC
If you added campaigns to disbursements, then you will need to click on FIle again so your expenditures have the new campaign ids. Go to Compliance reports and click on “File” for your Michigan report.
Download the files again and you will need to upload the EXPN file that now has the Campaign ids into MiTN.
Import Transactions
- Go into MiTN and click on Filing
- If your filing is not there, you will need to create it.
- Once the filing is created, click on the filing.
- Click on the “Save and Next” button in the lower left hand corner of the screen until you get to Receipts.
Errors
- MiTN will display a list of errors for each row where there is an issue. Click on the “Hard Required Fields” to see the error
- File will not be processed until ALL errors are fixed / removed
| Field | Error | Note | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Committee ID | No matching record for committee ID. The provided ID does not correspond to any existing committee | If you receive this error, make sure to update the PAC Organization in Quorum with the correct ID for future reference. | Add the correct Committee ID |
| Payee_USN | Contact does not exist with that value |
If you receive this error, you will need to go to the Names file and find this committee then copy the committee into a new file. Next, go to Contacts, click on Upload Contacts and select the file you created that just has the missing committee. Click on Create Import to send the request to MiTN.
Also, if the client added the Individual or the PAC organization manually (not via the Names file), then all subsequent transactions will need to use the Michigan ID. If the client gets an error on this field, check the Contacts to see if this person/committee exists and if so, you will need to copy the Michigan id into this field in the error record. |
Receipts Import
- Click on Choose File button and select the RCPT file
- Click on Create Import to submit the import.
- Once the status says “DT Final Import”, you can move to the next step.
- If there are errors, you will need to fix each record.
It can take about 15-20 minutes for the system to upload the data. Sometimes the status gets stuck so it is a good idea to click on the “Previous” or “Save and Next” button “refresh” the page - otherwise it might never update the status.
Expenses Import
- Click on Choose File button and select the EXPN file
- Click on Create Import to submit the import.
- Once the status says “DT Final Import”, you can move to the next step.
- If there are errors, you will need to fix each record. Campaign IDs are the usual issue with EXPN. If the campaign id is the issue, just make sure the id is correct.
- Verify the totals are correct by clicking on Summary Preview
After all Receipts and Expenses have been successfully entered into the MiTN system, review your totals. If everything looks correct, you are ready to file your report.