Is there a standard database format for financial information of a company ?

Question

Is there any standard format with which Companies/Stock Exchanges use to communicate financial data? Like Balance Sheet, Income Cash Flow etc. Some of these data are submitted to Securities Board using formats like EDGAR. But what is generally the standard? Where do I find more information on this?

Answer 1

Not sure on your exact requirements, but you might be interested in XBRL -- eXtensible Business Reporting Language

XBRL is an XML file format rather than plain text / csv, but is the heavyweight champion in financial reporting -- already adopted by US and European central banks.

The XBRL General Ledger dialect is used for reporting transactional GL data.

See also:

• XBRL.org Specifications Repository -- http://www.xbrl.org/Specifications/
• Securities and Exchange Commission's portal about XBRL -- http://xbrl.sec.gov/

Answer 2

The OFX specification is capable of handling investment transaction too, not just banking / creditcard. You can also convert your text / csv investment / brokerage files to OFX or QIF using iCreateOFX Investment.

Answer 3

Can you be more specific in what you're trying to accomplish? Theres a multitude of formats companies use depending on the situation.

There is OFX for one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Financial_Exchange

A lot of companies want to communicate with SOAP and/or XML these days.

In addition a lot of companies use plain old flat text files for large data volumes.

Oftentimes it will just depend on the financial institution you want to communicate with and which of their systems you want to interface with. Each company and system will have its own peculiar differences and its own data layout.