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Methodology & Data Dictionary

Where every number comes from, how we verify it against the filing, and exactly how each field is defined.

SOURCE OF RECORD

Every value is sourced from SEC EDGAR — the authoritative record for U.S. public-company disclosure. Financials come from each company's XBRL companyfacts; filings and the company profile from submissions; the in-app filing viewer renders the original document. Each value the API returns carries the exact filing it came from (accession number + URL), so any number can be traced to the source in one click.

Point-in-time. Append ?as_of=YYYY-MM-DD to the financial endpoints (facts, metrics, income statement, balance sheet, cash flow) to get only what had been filed by that date — the restated-number trap that causes look-ahead bias in backtests is removed by design.

HOW WE VERIFY

The hard part of a financial dataset is not serving it — it's proving it's right without checking your own work against itself. Our verification reads the filing, through a path that shares no code with the extraction pipeline, so a single bug cannot pass both.

1 · Internal consistency
Every row checked against accounting identities (assets = liabilities + equity; quarters sum to the year).
2 · Cross-source
Compared against third-party providers — a divergence alarm, triaged to a definitional reason or a real difference.
3 · Read the filing
An independent reader extracts the figures straight from the rendered 10-K and diffs them against the database.
4 · Human adjudication
Every disagreement is settled against the source document by a person, which also calibrates the reader's own error rate.
DEFINITIONAL CHOICES

Many providers recompute line items, which quietly changes them. We report figures as filed and state our formulas plainly. Where we differ from a recomputed feed, it's a documented choice — here's each one and why.

Operating income — as reported
We use the filed OperatingIncomeLoss, which keeps restructuring and impairment charges. Providers that recompute (gross profit − R&D − SG&A) drop these, so our number can differ on a year with large one-time charges. Ours is the filed figure.
Net income & equity — attributable to the parent
Both use the figure attributable to common shareholders (the one diluted EPS is computed on), excluding noncontrolling interests — so return-on-equity is on a consistent basis.
Total debt — borrowings plus finance leases
Short- and long-term borrowings plus finance-lease obligations. Operating leases are excluded by default (the traditional definition); we expose them separately. A provider that bundles operating leases into debt will show a higher number.
EBITDA — operating income plus D&A
Built from the as-reported operating income, not recomputed from scratch.
Cash — cash & equivalents as filed
CashAndCashEquivalents as reported. We do not fold short-term investments into cash, so cash-per-share reflects only true cash.
Receivables turnover & DSO — trade receivables
Sales divided by trade receivables (the textbook definition). Adding nontrade vendor receivables overstates the receivable base for some large filers.
Capital expenditure — property, plant & equipment
Purchases of PP&E as filed. We do not include capitalized software in capex.
DATA DICTIONARY
Field Statement Definition Source / formula
revenue Income statement Total revenue / net sales for the period. Revenues, falling back to RevenueFromContractWithCustomer (we prefer the larger total).
cost_of_revenue Income statement Cost of goods/services sold, as filed. CostOfRevenue / CostOfGoodsAndServicesSold
gross_profit Income statement Revenue minus cost of revenue, as filed. GrossProfit (or revenue − cost_of_revenue)
operating_income Income statement Operating income, as reported (keeps one-time charges). OperatingIncomeLoss
net_income Income statement Net income attributable to the company's common shareholders. NetIncomeLoss
eps_diluted Income statement Diluted earnings per share, as reported. EarningsPerShareDiluted
total_assets Balance sheet Total assets at period end. Assets
total_liabilities Balance sheet Total liabilities at period end. Liabilities
stockholders_equity Balance sheet Total equity attributable to the parent (excludes noncontrolling interests). StockholdersEquity
cash_and_equivalents Balance sheet Cash and cash equivalents (excludes short-term investments). CashAndCashEquivalentsAtCarryingValue
operating_cash_flow Cash flow Net cash from operating activities. NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities
capital_expenditure Cash flow Purchases of property, plant & equipment. PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment
free_cash_flow Derived Operating cash flow minus capital expenditure. operating_cash_flow − capital_expenditure
total_debt Derived Borrowings + finance leases; operating leases excluded. current debt + noncurrent debt + finance leases
invested_capital Derived Total debt + total equity − cash & equivalents. total_debt + stockholders_equity − cash_and_equivalents
return_on_equity Derived Net income ÷ shareholders' equity. net_income / stockholders_equity
gross_margin Derived Gross profit ÷ revenue. gross_profit / revenue

Full field coverage is in the API reference; every response also includes a source block with the filing each value came from.

COVERAGE & LIMITS

Structured fundamentals exist for XBRL filers (roughly 2009 onward); older periods and a few filers that incorporate their statements by reference are filings-only. We do not carry market prices, so price-based multiples are out of scope. Companies with large noncontrolling interests are reported on a parent-attributable basis for consistency. Limitations are stated rather than papered over — that's the point of this page.

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