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

Question

Is there any standard formats with which the companies / stock exchanges use to communicate financial data ? I have come across csv format but that is a bit different . Editing for more clarification :

I am looking at information like Balance Sheet , Income Cash Flow , these datas are submitted to Securities Board using some format like EDGAR for submiting . Please let me know if they have any formats . OFX is mroe related to banking transactions , I am looking for how compainies communicated with Securities board .

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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/