Accounting (ACCT 101 & ACCT 102) - South Bend - Elkhart

Don't worry, we have you covered!

Let's start with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), as they are your go-to if you need to find the financial statements/reports of a publicly-traded company.

In the interest of protecting investors, the SEC requires public companies to disclose certain financial information to the public—which the SEC then makes available to the public for free through its EDGAR database tool:

https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html

Use the Edgar search database if you need to find:

• an annual report for a U.S. company, which gives an overview of the business & year-end financial statements (SEC Form 10-K)
• a quarterly report for a company, which provide financial figures for a 3-month period (SEC Form 10-Q)
• an annual report for a foreign company (SEC Form 20-F)
• forms for either a private company going public (what’s called an “initial public offering” or an IPO), or for a company selling new shares of stock (SEC Form S-1)

  What’s a publicly-traded company? 

It's any company (domestic or foreign) that has shares of its stock trading on the stock market. Not sure if a particular company is public? Do a quick Google search (you can use the search box at the bottom of this page to make it easier!) and type in any company name with the word stock right after it:

If you see something similar to the example above, then the company you searched for is publicly-traded.

 What if I just need examples of SEC forms, as opposed to forms for a specific company?

No worries! You can see PDFs of all SEC forms (and some of the rules, regulations, and schedules associated with those forms) here: https://www.sec.gov/forms