CAL file format encodes FPPC forms

[Ray Tobey]

Some of you probably know this stuff already, but I'll offer it just in case:

Cal File Format Specification

That document describes an important file format:

The Secretary of State's document containing the design definition of the California Electronic Filing Format for the electronic filing of California campaign and lobbying disclosure documents.

When a political campaign submits an electronic financial report to SF, Netfile or the Secretary of State, the information is in this format. It has comma separated values, but the extension is usually .CAL.

Within a CAL file, each line starts with a header code, like CVR, RCPT, EXPN or SMRY. The next field usually identifies part of a paper form, like 'Form 460' or 'Schedule A'. The document above tells you what's in the rest of that line according to the header code and form specifier.

All of the fields originate from paper forms, and the paper version includes instructions on how to fill them out. Therefore, these PDFs can often help you understand the data files:

Campaign Forms and Instructions

There are other sources for California financial disclosure data but as far as I know, they all extract from these .CAL files. Unfortunately, the other tools leave some info behind. For my purposes, I had to go to the source and write my own parser.

There's some additional info here:

https://netfile.com/Filer/(X(1))/Vendor/Api/v10

This kind of background might be helpful for new people joining the group.
- Ray