The Quality of Interactive Data: XBRL Versus Compustat, Yahoo Finance, and Google Finance

Abstract

The issue of the quality of interactive data is of interest to all stakeholders in the evolution of XBRL since the adoption of XBRL is often premised on the value of making business data available to users in a standardized, shareable format. Proponents of XBRL claim that XBRL-tagged data obtained directly from the company or from a regulator’s website such as the SEC’s EDGAR, in contrast with data obtained from aggregators such as Compustat, are the closest and most accurate reflection of the company’s intended communication in their official financial reports. However, to date, there has been no formal study of the similarities and differences between interactive data (i.e., XBRL-tagged data filed with the SEC) and data provided by aggregators. This study fills this gap by comparing interactive data with the data items reported by three prominent data aggregators or redistributors: Compustat, Google Finance, and Yahoo Finance. We find a significant rate of omission of more than 50% in the financial statement items provided by aggregators/redistributors compared with the interactive data available on the SEC’s EDGAR website. For items that are not omitted, we find up to 4.8% (tracing from interactive data to aggregator data) and 8% (tracing from aggregator data to interactive data) mismatches, with approximately 56% of differences being greater than conventional materiality. The rate of mismatch differs by aggregator for the three financial statements studied: Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and the Statement of Cash Flows. The differences are most frequent in the Statement of Cash Flows (comparison between interactive data and aggregators) and the Income Statement (reverse comparison), but generally they tend to decline over the three year period studied.