Glossary · Audit and reporting
XBRL and EDGAR filings
The tagged data behind every public filing, and why it is the raw material of public-company analysis.
Public companies file their financial statements on the SEC's EDGAR system with every number tagged in XBRL, the machine-readable format that identifies each figure by a standardized concept such as ResearchAndDevelopmentExpense or CashAndCashEquivalentsAtCarryingValue. Since 2019 the tags are embedded inline in the HTML filing itself.
The tagging lets anyone pull a company's cash, R&D spend, or net loss history through the SEC's free APIs without reading the document. It is how the Cambridge biotech tracker on this site works. The limitation is that companies choose their tags, and custom extensions or unusual choices make a company harder to compare, which is one more reason the finance team should tag thoughtfully.
For a newly public company, XBRL is a compliance task with a learning curve: the filing agent tags the document, but the company is responsible for the accuracy, and inline XBRL errors are visible to every reader of the financial data.
General explanation, not accounting, tax, or legal advice for any specific company. Standards and tax law change; the entry reflects my understanding as of September 2026.