Digital Financial Reporting

Maybe this won't put the Fortune 500 list out of business any time soon (or heck, maybe it will) but here is a prototype list of the top 1000 SEC filers:

• By Assets
• By Revenues run rate
• By Net Income run rate
• By Net Cash Flows run rate
• For good measure, here is the current Fortune 500

Let me point out a few things.  First, keep the word PROTOTYPE in your mind. Not saying these are precisely right just yet.  They seem to be, but I have to debug my algorithms.  This prototype is intended to help people see the power of XBRL, not be the definitive source of the top 1000 companies.  One day maybe.

Second, my prototype uses only the 10-Q and 10-K filings between 2011-04-01 and 2011-08-19.

Third, note that I am using the run rates for the information which relates to a period of time.  This is because the 10-K information is for an entire fiscal year, whereas the 10-Q information is for one or more quarters.  To make this comparable, I am dividing the number by the days to get the amount per day, which is called a run rate.  Note that the Fortune 500 is updated yearly.  I can update this every time a new filing is received by the SEC theoretically.

Fourth, I could add other categories: total R&D, net operating cash flows from continuing operations, yada, yada, yada.  Why?  Space on the internet is free and because once the query is written, running the query is free!

Fifth, I could provide the top 5, top 10, top 25, top 100, top 500, top 1000, top 2500, top 5000, or heck every filer!  I could do it by SIC code, by home state of the corporation; as all that metadata is out there to use.  Want a different sort?  Fine, add more metadata.

Finally, this type of functionality is not limited to the SEC XBRL financial filings.  Any data set expressed in XBRL can be accessed just as easily.  I am using Microsoft Access, no XBRL processor, and I am not even a very good programmer!  Granted, the queries are not that challenging and my queries are limited.  Imagine what you can do with an XBRL processor, with a more powerful database, and using more sophisticated queries.

P....R.....O.....T....O.....T.....Y....P....E!!!  Don't beat me up if I have errors just yet. I am working on tuning this. The point is to show the possibilities, not analyze companies.