The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires public companies to file periodic financial statements and other disclosures. Accountants, finance professionals and investors rely on SEC filings to make informed decisions and learn more about a company's finances.
Here is a list of common SEC filings, which can be found in one of the databases linked below:
- 10-Q Quarterly Report: contains traditional financial statements and footnotes, but it also contains management discussion and analysis (MD&A). The MD&A describes the income statement and statement of cash flows fluctuations
- 10-K Annual Report: filed at the end of the fourth quarter. The 10-K contains the financial statements and MD&A for that particular year end, but it also contains some expanded disclosures in the various other parts of the document
- 8-K Changes Report: used to report material events to the shareholders
- 20-F Annual Report: Non-US company's (listed on one of the U.S. stock exchanges) annual report to SEC
- S-1 New Issue Filing: often known as the Prospectus for an Initial Public Offering (IPO)
Company financial statements usually refer to publicly-traded companies’ balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements. They can be found in 10-K and 10-Q reports, but you can also access and download them into Excel using Mergent Online (see below).
Source: Accounting Today
