Receipts and Vouchers: Build the Paper Trail as You Spend
A receipt and a voucher are different documents, and campaigns confuse them constantly. That confusion is why records look complete in March and fall apart in June.
A receipt comes from outside. It is the seller's evidence that you paid them. A voucher comes from inside. It is your campaign's evidence of what the payment was for and who agreed to it.
You need both. A receipt with no voucher tells a reader that money left, and nothing about why.
What belongs on a payment voucher
Keep it to one small page or one screen, with the same fields every time.
A serial number, running in sequence with no gaps. The date. The amount, in words as well as figures where it is written by hand. What was bought, in plain language. Which activity, ward or event it belongs to. The budget line it comes from. Who requested it, who approved it and who actually paid. Finally, what is attached, meaning the receipt, the delivery note or the transaction code.
Serial numbers matter more than they look. A gap in a sequence is a question that answers itself when asked in the same week, and is unanswerable a year later.
When the seller has no receipt book, or the receipt is lost
Much campaign spending in a Kenyan ward happens with people who do not issue receipts. The woman who cooked for the training. The rider who moved posters across the ward for a day. The man with a lorry.
Do not let that become a hole in the record. Use a payment voucher the recipient signs, carrying their name, phone number and identification number, the work done, the date and the amount. Photograph the signed voucher.
That is a real document. It names a person who can confirm it, and it was made at the time rather than afterwards.
Photograph everything the same day
Paper receipts fade, tear and travel around in vehicles. Thermal printer receipts go blank within months, sometimes faster in heat.
Photograph or scan every receipt on the day it arrives, name the file with the voucher number, and store it somewhere more than one person can reach. If your campaign uses a system that attaches the image to the payment row, use that rather than a folder on somebody's phone, because the folder leaves when the phone does.
Where the originals live
One box, one custodian, one place, arranged by month rather than by type.
Originals should not live with the person who spends the money. Separate the holding of the record from the making of the payment and you have a control without adding a single meeting.
At the end of every month the custodian closes the month: vouchers filed in sequence, gaps explained in writing, and the total agreed against the bank and mobile money statements. A month that is closed is a month nobody has to reconstruct. Related: how the weekly reconciliation works.
Receipts also go missing, and they will. A rider loses one, a box gets rained on, somebody pays in a hurry and never asks for the slip.
The wrong response is to leave a blank or to obtain a replacement receipt that was written later and describes something nobody witnessed. Write a short certificate of expenditure instead: what was bought, from whom, on what date, for how much, why the receipt is not available, signed by the person who spent and countersigned by the treasurer.
Then count them. A handful of certificates across a campaign is normal. Dozens of them is not a paperwork problem, it is a sign that money is leaving without anybody agreeing in advance that it should, and the fix is upstream in the approval rule rather than in the filing.
Why this is worth an hour a week in 2026
Campaign finance reporting obligations are set out in the regulations the IEBC gazettes ahead of each election, and reporting is periodic rather than a single act at the end. The campaign that files well is not the one with a better accountant in the last month. It is the one that has been closing months since 2026.
There is a political reason too. A complete record lets you answer an accusation with a document instead of a denial. In a contested nomination or a dispute over spending, a campaign that can produce numbered vouchers with receipts attached is in a different position from one that cannot.
Start with your next payment
Number it 001. Build the voucher template today, print a stack of them, and give them to every person who spends anything on the campaign's behalf. Then set the monthly close date and put the custodian's name against it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a receipt and a payment voucher?
A receipt is issued by the seller and proves you paid them. A voucher is written by your campaign and records what the payment was for, which activity or ward it belongs to, who approved it and who paid. A campaign that keeps only receipts can show that money left but not why, which is the question that actually gets asked.
How do you record a payment to a supplier who has no receipt book?
Use a payment voucher that the recipient signs, showing their name, phone number, identification number, the work done, the date and the amount, then photograph the signed voucher the same day. That is a genuine contemporaneous record naming somebody who can confirm it. Most ward-level campaign spending happens with vendors who do not issue receipts, so this cannot be treated as an exception.