File a disclosure return

When donors cross the threshold, you owe the relevant electoral authority a return. Together packages the data; you submit it. This walkthrough covers the disclosures page, the CSV export, and the bulk actions you use at filing time.

A disclosure return is your formal report to the electoral authority - the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) federally, or the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) for Victorian obligations - about donors who crossed the disclosure threshold in a given reporting period. Together tracks each donor's cumulative giving, identifies every donation that becomes disclosable once they cross the threshold, and lets you batch-prep an entire period in one pass. This walkthrough is written for the federal (AEC) flow; the same disclosures page, triage, and CSV steps apply to Victoria, which you select with the jurisdiction control and lodge with the VEC.

Before you start

You need:

• ADMIN role on your org.
• Compliance module active.
• A reporting period to file against. Together creates periods automatically based on your entity type and any election periods you've configured.
• A way to submit returns to the relevant authority (the AEC's online return portal federally, or the VEC's process for Victorian obligations; or a paper-return process).

Open the disclosures page

Go to Compliance > Disclosures.

Click to expand

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The page is built around up to four controls (a federal-only org sees three):

• Jurisdiction selector - shown only when your org has revenue codes in more than one jurisdiction (for example, both federal and Victorian). Pick the jurisdiction you're filing for; each has its own reporting periods. Switching jurisdiction resets the period. The URL takes a ?jurisdiction=<key> parameter.
• Period selector in the top right. The URL takes a ?period=<slug> parameter so you can bookmark or share a specific period's view.
• Status filter tabs across the top: All, Pending, Overdue, Review, Completed, Cancelled, Superseded. Counts beside each label.
• Selection checkboxes on every row. Selecting one or more rows reveals the sticky bulk-action toolbar at the bottom of the page.

Pick the period you're filing for. Available periods include:

• FY periods (old regime). FY 2025-26 and FY 2026-27 use the financial-year regime with indexed thresholds ($17,300 for 2025-26; $17,900 for 2026-27, truncated at 31 December 2026). Returns under the old regime are still real obligations to the AEC; Together surfaces donors over threshold as a list so your compliance lead can file, but the per-obligation status flow (Pending / Disclosed) does not apply.
• Calendar-year periods (new regime). From 1 January 2027, periods are calendar years with the $5,000 threshold and $50,000 cap. Once a donor crosses the threshold, every donation from that point on is separately disclosable - Together creates a disclosure entry for each one, with its own deadline, and tracks each through the status flow described below.
• Election periods. Post-2027 elections shift reporting to 7-day-per-donation deadlines through the campaign and 24-hour-per-donation deadlines in the week either side of polling day.
• Victorian financial-year periods. Shown when you select Victoria in the jurisdiction control. VIC aggregates per financial year (the first runs from the 15 April 2026 commencement to 30 June 2026), all obligation-creating, at the VEC's per-financial-year disclosure threshold, which the VEC indexes each 1 July ($1,250 at commencement, $1,290 for the 2026-27 financial year). The deadline is a flat 21 days from each gift. Victorian returns are lodged with the VEC, not the AEC.

Triage the queue

Walk the status filters in order:

Click View details on a donor's row to open their compliance page, then open the obligation from the ledger. The obligation pack shows the full donation history for the period with each disclosable gift highlighted, the trigger date and amount, and the deadline calculation.

Verify donor identity

For each disclosable donor, confirm Together has the right data. Both the AEC (federal) and the VEC (Victorian) need full name and address for every donor, plus the organisation name for organisation / trust donors. Missing fields show on the obligation pack; edit the donor record at Donors before filing.

If a row sits in the Review tab because of missing identity data, fix the donor record and Together re-evaluates on the next compliance sweep.

Download the CSV

The CSV is the input to whatever return-prep your compliance lead or accountant runs. Two ways to grab it:

Single disclosure. Open the donor's compliance page and open the obligation. There's a Download CSV card on the right.

Bulk download. Tick the rows you want from the list view. The sticky toolbar appears at the bottom with the count selected. Click Download CSV. The filename's leading token reflects the format: a single-jurisdiction federal selection downloads as aec-recipient-return-<period-label>-<count>-records.csv; a generic selection downloads as disclosures-<period-label>-<count>-records.csv (both use -1-record for a single row). If your selection spans multiple periods, the period component becomes <N>-periods.

For a single-jurisdiction federal selection, the file is the AEC recipient annual-return bulk-upload format - the column set the AEC's own importer expects (matched to the AEC's published "Bulk Upload CSV Template - Recipient"). It is one row per disclosable donation: the Donation amount column is that single gift, and a separate calendar-year-total column carries the donor's running total as at that donation's date. The file is built to drop straight into the AEC's bulk upload.

If your selection mixes jurisdictions, or covers a period with no authority template, Together falls back to a generic CSV with these columns, in order:

Receipt Number, Jurisdiction, Donor Name, Donor Type, Email,
Phone, Address Line 1, Address Line 2, Suburb, State, Postcode,
Disclosure Period, Trigger Amount, Trigger Date,
Disclosure Deadline, Period Type, Status,
Donor Notified, Donor Confirmed, Org Disclosed,
Org Disclosure Ref

In the generic CSV, Trigger Amount is the donor's running calendar-year total as at that donation's date (the per-donation gift is the Donation amount column in the AEC format). The receipt number is Together's stable identifier for the obligation - keep it so future syncs reconcile back to the same row.

Submit the return

Together does not file directly with any authority. The CSV is the prep step; the actual submission happens through the authority's return process. The steps below are the federal (AEC) flow. For a Victorian selection, export the generic CSV (the VEC-specific bulk-upload template is still being finalised) and lodge it with the VEC via their process; the donor-identity, amount, and date columns map the same way.

1. Open a return for the same period and entity type with the AEC.
2. For a federal selection, the CSV already matches the AEC's bulk-upload format, so you upload it directly - there are no columns to remap. For a generic CSV (a mixed-jurisdiction selection, or a pre-2027 period), map the columns into the AEC's required disclosure fields (donor identity, address, amount, date) first.
3. Submit and keep the AEC's confirmation. Note the reference number; you'll record it back in Together as the Org Disclosure Ref in the next step.

Bulk-mark the filed rows

After the authority (the AEC, or the VEC for Victorian returns) confirms, return to Compliance > Disclosures and update the rows you just filed. This is where the bulk-action toolbar earns its keep.

1. Filter to the period you just filed.
2. Tick the rows you submitted. The toolbar appears at the bottom with the count selected.
3. The toolbar surfaces two write actions, depending on what's outstanding:
   • Mark Notified - records the current date as when you notified the donor of the disclosure. Idempotent: rows already notified are skipped.
   • Mark Disclosed - records the current date as when the org filed the return. A dialog asks for an optional AEC reference (e.g., AEC-2026-12345); the reference is applied to every selected row.
4. Confirm. The toolbar shows Marked N disclosures as disclosed and clears the selection.

The rows move into Completed and the matching compliance alerts clear automatically. When the donor confirms receipt of their copy (via the magic link in the notification email, or a manual confirmation by an admin), the disclosure moves to Fully Disclosed.

The email you send a donor about their obligation is built from a template you control. An ADMIN can tailor the subject and body - and use placeholders like the donor's name, the amount, and the deadline - at Settings > Compliance > Disclosure emails. You set a separate template for each jurisdiction you operate in, so a Victorian obligation reads for the VEC and a federal one for the AEC. Leave a field blank to use the default wording.

Tips for a clean filing pass

• Filter first, then select. Use the Overdue or Pending tab to narrow the list before ticking rows. It's the difference between selecting 6 actionable obligations and trying to remember which of 60 historical rows still need filing.
• Spot-check the CSV before submission. Open the file in a spreadsheet and confirm each donation date and the donor's calendar-year total line up with the donor's record. The calendar-year total is the Total amount of all donations received... column in the AEC format, or the Trigger Amount column in the generic CSV. Together's matcher is conservative but it's worth one human pass.
• Record the authority's reference per filing. If you file the period in multiple submissions (e.g., one for individuals, one for organisations), use a different reference each time so the audit trail is unambiguous.
• Don't mark Disclosed before the authority confirms. The bulk action is fast; resist the temptation to flip everything to Disclosed before you have a receipt. If the authority bounces a row, you want it still in Pending.

What to do next

• Resolve any remaining alerts in the queue: Resolve a compliance alert.
• Confirm thresholds for the next period at Settings > Compliance if your entity type or regime has changed.
• Read the regime if the FY > CY 2027 shift affects how you map this period's data: The federal regime.