This article is intended for: Admin users with a Financial Engagement subscription.
Use this article for: Adding the checkbook widget to your Financial Engagement website.
Note: You can click on any image below to zoom in.
What is the Checkbook Widget?
The Checkbook widget, also called Open Checkbook, gives residents a searchable, check-level view of your organization's actual government spending: individual payments, who they went to, how much, and when. It's the most granular of the financial storytelling widgets, where Revenue & Expenditures and Debt summarize by category and fund, Checkbook shows the underlying transactions themselves.
The Checkbook widget becomes available once your organization submits check-level expenditure data to the ClearGov Data Team.
Before You Start: Upload Your Checkbook Data
The widget displays checkbook data from ClearGov, so get your data loaded first. If your organization has the ClearGov Financials tool, you can upload it yourself, with no request to ClearGov needed. If you don’t have the Financials tool, contact your Client Success Manager about getting checkbook data loaded.
- Navigate to Tools in the left navigation, then select Financials
- Select the Checkbook tab
- Select + Add Check(s) in the upper right corner of the Checkbook panel
- Download the ClearGov template, enter your check details, and upload the file
For the full steps, see Financials: Add Checkbook Data.
Add the Checkbook Widget to Your Site
- Navigate to Content & Design, then select Design
- Select the page where you want Checkbook to appear
- Select + Add Widget, then select Checkbook
- Select Publish Changes in the upper right corner. Changes take 1 to 5 minutes to go live.
Pro Tip: Keep Checkbook current by uploading new checks on a regular schedule, such as monthly or after each payment run. Residents notice when the most recent payment is months old.
What Residents See
Once data has been submitted, residents reach Checkbook from a Checkbook item in your site's main navigation (alongside items like Demographics, Projects, and Updates & Timeline). The page displays:
- A page header reading Open Checkbook
- A Search box, for finding a specific vendor or transaction
- Start Date and End Date filters, for narrowing to a date range
- A Dimension dropdown and a Category dropdown, for filtering by expenditure type
- A Download Checkbook link, top right, for exporting the data
- A results table with columns: Date, Check #, Vendor, Description, Category, Account #, and Amount
Additional Resources
Check out our other training resources to learn more:
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