A Request for Additional Information is not an audit. It is not an enforcement action, and it is not a fine. It is a letter from a campaign finance analyst assigned to your committee indicating that an item on a report you filed requires clarification, correction, or explanation.

It is also a letter carrying a fixed deadline that the Commission has no authority to extend. That combination — routine in substance, unforgiving in timing — is what makes the RFAI worth understanding well before one arrives.

In the assessment of Thomas Datwyler, founder of 9Seven Consulting and treasurer of record for hundreds of federal committees, the RFAI represents the review system functioning as intended: the Commission identifies in writing precisely what it believes is incorrect and allows five weeks to address it.

What an RFAI actually is

A Request for Additional Information is issued by the FEC’s Reports Analysis Division when an analyst reviewing your report needs clarification or identifies an error, omission, or possible prohibited activity.

RAD analysts review roughly 50,000 reports a year. Each is assigned somewhere between 200 and 400 committees. Yours has one, and their name is printed in the last paragraph of the letter.

The letter has three parts worth knowing by sight:

• Upper right corner: your response due date.
• Center paragraphs: the specific issue or issues the Commission is asking about, usually with the report, schedule, and line identified.
• Last paragraph: the name of your analyst.

The 35-day rule

Per the FEC, committees have 35 days from the date of the RFAI letter to respond.

Three things follow, and each of them is absolute:

1. The FEC cannot issue an extension. Not for illness, not for a campaign in the field, not for a treasurer transition. The Commission’s own guidance states it plainly: no extensions, under any circumstances.
2. Failure to respond may result in further Commission action.
3. A late response does not undo the underlying problem. Under RAD’s review procedures, a response received more than 35 days after the date of the RFAI will not remove the associated review point from the committee’s record — regardless of how good the response is.

That third point is the one nobody understands until it’s too late. Day 36 is not “a little late.” Day 36 is a different legal posture.

The clock runs from the date on the letter, not the date you opened it. And the letter goes to the address on your most recent Statement of Organization (Form 1). If your committee’s address is a campaign office that closed, you have a problem you don’t know about yet.

What triggers an RFAI

Most RFAIs fall into a handful of buckets:

• Cash on hand doesn’t reconcile. Your ending balance doesn’t tie to your beginning balance plus receipts minus disbursements — or your report contradicts a prior report.
• Missing contributor information. Occupation and employer absent for itemized contributions over $200.
• Apparent excessive contributions. A donor’s aggregate exceeds the per-election limit with no refund, redesignation, or reattribution on file.
• Apparent prohibited contributions. Corporate, labor, or federal contractor funds.
• Missing triggered reports. Your Schedule A shows a large late contribution but no 48-Hour Notice exists. Your Schedule E shows independent expenditures aggregating $10,000 or more with no 24- or 48-hour report on file. The Commission cross-checks these automatically.
• Vague purposes of disbursement. “Consulting.” “Expenses.” “Reimbursement.”
• Unresolved debts carried on Schedule D without explanation.
• Math and transposition errors between schedules and summary pages.

Most of these are the same items on our list of reporting mistakes that trigger FEC audits — because an RFAI is the early warning, and an audit is what happens when the warnings pile up.

How to respond: seven steps

1. Diary the deadline the day the letter arrives

Not the day you plan to address it. Calendar the response due date from the upper right corner, plus an internal target one week earlier.

2. Read every numbered paragraph as a separate question

An RFAI often contains several distinct issues. Partial responses are the most common failure mode. Make a literal checklist from the letter itself and answer every item, even ones you believe the analyst got wrong.

3. Pull the underlying records before you draft anything

Bank statements. Contributor cards. Invoices. Vendor contracts. Decide what happened before deciding what to say about it.

4. Determine whether you need to amend, explain, or both

This is the judgment call.

• If the report was wrong, amend it. File an amended report correcting the specific entries. Then reference the amendment in your response.
• If the report was right and the analyst’s inference was reasonable but mistaken, explain it — with documentation.
• Frequently, both. Amend the entries that were wrong, explain the ones that weren’t.

Do not amend a report to make an RFAI go away without understanding what the correction implies. An amendment that fixes one line and breaks the cash-on-hand continuity of every subsequent report has made the situation worse.

5. Call your analyst

Their name is in the last paragraph. The FEC explicitly encourages committees to communicate directly with the assigned analyst.

This is the most underused tool in federal compliance. A five-minute call clarifying what the analyst is asking for is worth more than a ten-page letter answering a question nobody asked.

6. File the response the way the FEC wants it

Responses may be submitted through the Reports Analysis Division’s contact form or on Form 99 (Miscellaneous Text). Electronic filers can submit Form 99 through the FEC’s web forms system.

Where you have amended a report, say so, identify the amendment, and explain what changed. Where you are explaining rather than amending, state the facts and attach or reference the supporting records.

7. Fix the process, not just the report

An RFAI is diagnostic. A missing 48-Hour Notice means your contribution intake doesn’t flag $1,000 receipts. Unreconciled cash on hand means nobody is reconciling monthly. Missing employer data means your best-efforts follow-up isn’t running.

Answer the letter. Then answer the question the letter is really asking, which is: what in this committee’s process allowed this?

What an RFAI is not

It is not an audit. The Commission generally audits a committee only when it participates in public financing or appears not to have met the threshold requirements for substantial compliance. One RFAI, answered well, is ordinary business. See our overview of the FEC audit process.

It is not an administrative fine. Civil penalties for late and non-filed reports come through the Administrative Fine Program and arrive as a “reason to believe” letter with a penalty amount and a 40-day window to pay or challenge. That is a different envelope.

It is not public condemnation. RFAIs and committee responses are part of the public record. Answering one competently is unremarkable. Accumulating unanswered ones is not.

How 9Seven Consulting handles RFAIs

9Seven Consulting responds to RFAIs the week they arrive — records pulled, analyst called, amendments filed, process corrected. As the outsourced treasurer of record for hundreds of federal committees, the firm’s own name is on the response.

Thomas Datwyler has filed more than 4,000 FEC reports and worked with over 400 committees across 15 years. The best RFAI outcome, he’ll tell you, is the one you never receive.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is an FEC RFAI? A: A Request for Additional Information — a letter from an FEC Reports Analysis Division analyst seeking clarification, or identifying an error, omission, or possible prohibited activity on a report your committee filed.

Q: How long do I have to respond to an RFAI? A: Thirty-five days from the date of the letter. The response due date appears in the upper right corner. The FEC cannot grant an extension under any circumstances.

Q: What happens if I miss the RFAI deadline? A: Failure to respond may result in further Commission action. A response filed after the 35-day window will not remove the underlying review point from the committee’s record, even if the substance of the response is correct.

Q: Is an RFAI the same as an FEC audit? A: No. An RFAI is a routine review inquiry. The Commission generally audits committees only when they participate in public financing or appear not to have met the threshold requirements for substantial compliance — a condition that unanswered RFAIs help create.

Q: How do I submit an RFAI response? A: Through the Reports Analysis Division’s contact form or by filing Form 99. Communicate directly with the analyst named in the final paragraph of your letter; RAD can be reached at (202) 694-1130.

Holding an RFAI right now? Contact 9Seven Consulting for a free consultation. The clock is already running.

9Seven Consulting LLC · 9sevenfec.com · Hudson, WI · Est. 2013

Disclaimer: This article is provided for general informational purposes and is not legal advice.