Question
How do I get started?
Answer

Step 1. Go to the PDC's Apollo filing application, and sign in using your Secure Access Washington (SAW) account.

Step 2. Choose "Use PDC's ORCA product," to continue with ORCA. Otherwise, choose a different vendor option.

Step 3. Use the setup wizard to create your campaign.

If you are using the same Secure Access Washington (SAW) account that you used to register the candidate or political committee, that campaign should show as an option in Setup Wizard. If you don’t see the campaign that you need try closing ORCA and logging in again using the SAW account you used to create or update the registration. If that doesn’t work, contact PDC staff. 

Enter the campaign start date — make sure the campaign start date is on or before the date of the first financial activity of the campaign. If you are creating an ORCA campaign for a new calendar year for a continuing committee, make the campaign start date January 1.  

Select one of three options for carrying forward contacts and carryforward balances. This step can also wait until the new campaign is set up. 

Step 4. Enter data.

Enter monetary contributions using the monetary contributions function under Contributions. In the contributor name field, find the donor as a contact, or use the Create new contact button to create a new contact for the contributor.

After you click the Save button for the contribution, you may enter another contribution or click the Make a Deposit button on that window to indicate when the contributions you have entered went into the campaign bank account. This step makes a C-3 report for you to submit. 

Enter expenditures from the campaign bank account using the Monetary Expenditures function under Expenditures. If the vendor is already a contact in your ORCA campaign, click on Vendor Paid and find the vendor in the pop-up list. If the vendor is not already a contact, click the Create New Contact button. ORCA will put the expenditure on schedule A of the C-4 report for that time period.

You may view C-3 and C-4 reports using the C-3 or C-4 function under File Reports.