ABSTRACT
We compare the financial statement data (excluding footnotes) reported by 105 randomly selected firms in their 10-K filings with data contained in XBRL filings and data reported by three data aggregators/distributors: Compustat, Google Finance, and Yahoo! Finance. We find that 48 percent to 63.2 percent of the 10-K financial statement items available in XBRL filings are not available from the aggregators/distributors. However, aggregator/distributor-provided data contain many financial items that are not in the official 10-K or XBRL filings but could be useful to users. For items included both in XBRL and by aggregators/distributors, all but 0.01 percent of the XBRL data amounts agree with the 10-K filings, whereas 6.5 percent to 7.7 percent of the amounts provided by aggregators/distributors do not, depending on the aggregator/distributor. Most differences are material, and the differences in items used in bankruptcy prediction and earnings quality models result in significant differences in the model results.
