Acacia Blue Accounting
Get in touch

2027 NSW State Election

Campaign finance for NSW independents

Setup and training for NSW independent campaigns, so your team can run its own books with confidence and get on with campaigning.

Talk to us about your campaign What's included

What's included

We build your campaign's own capacity to manage its finances: set up once, trained properly, supported all the way to election day.

1Set up

Setup session

We work with the campaign to set up Xero, Hubdoc and Together Giving, integrated with the campaign CRM and connected to the campaign bank account.

  • Xero
  • Hubdoc
  • Together Giving
  • CRM

2Train

Campaign finance training

We train campaign team members (ideally a volunteer with a bookkeeping or accounting background) to reconcile transactions daily and run campaign finance reporting from Xero.

Budget and cap tracking

Daily reporting on actuals versus budget, and how spending tracks against the expenditure cap.

Disclosure process

How to match each donation in Together Giving to the bank statement and complete disclosures for the candidate to lodge.

3Support

Systems oversight

Regular review of Xero, Hubdoc, Together Giving and the CRM.

Weekly check-in

A weekly call to review reports and budgets and work through questions.

Signal support

We answer questions on Signal as best we can between sessions.

What's not included

  • Software subscriptions
    The campaign pays for Xero, Hubdoc and Together Giving directly, separate to the Acacia Blue fee.
  • Lodging on the campaign's behalf
    We don't prepare or lodge disclosures on the campaign's behalf. The candidate is legally responsible for submitting every lodgement, and our training shows your team how to complete them.
  • Electoral law advice
    We focus on financial compliance and process, not electoral law questions such as donor eligibility, registration or what counts as electoral expenditure. Those go to the NSWEC helpdesk on 1300 022 011.
  • Public funding claim and annual disclosure
    Extra support with these is outside this service and can be quoted separately.

Onboarding and training

Setting you up for success

Our focus is financial compliance and process: the systems, reports and routines that help your campaign stay on top of its obligations day to day.

Before you start

A solid foundation

Start fundraising from day one with your books set up properly from the first transaction.

  • Sequencing set-up so you know when you're ready to take a donation
  • Setting up a dedicated campaign account
  • Connecting your bank, Xero, Hubdoc, Together Giving and CRM
  • Who does what in your campaign finance team

Every dollar you spend

Spending with confidence

Know where you stand against budget and the expenditure cap each day, so you can make decisions in the final weeks.

  • Building and reporting on a campaign budget
  • Tracking spending against the expenditure cap
  • Capturing a receipt for every transaction
  • Keeping and backing up your financial records

Every donation

Managing donations well

Keep clear records of every donation and a donor list you can rely on.

  • Reporting on donors not yet checked for eligibility
  • Ring-fencing those donations until their eligibility is confirmed with the NSWEC or your own legal adviser
  • Tracking each donor's running total against the cap
  • Matching donations to the bank feed and your CRM
  • Recording in-kind support, fundraising and loans
  • Reports for weekly and half-yearly disclosures

After polling day

Closing out well

Finish neatly and put the campaign in the best position for any public funding claim.

  • Expenditure reports for the annual disclosure
  • Organising records to support a public funding claim
  • Closing the campaign account

Whether a campaign is eligible for public funding, and how much it can claim, depends on the votes received and the campaign's eligible spending.

This page outlines what our onboarding and training covers. We don't provide legal advice on electoral law, and the candidate remains responsible for meeting NSW electoral funding requirements. Questions such as donor eligibility or registration go to the NSWEC participant helpdesk on 1300 022 011.

Preparing for 13 March?

A short conversation helps us both work out whether Acacia Blue is the right support for your campaign, and whether your campaign is right for us.

Start a conversation