EDGAR Resources
Definitions and explanations of commonly used EDGAR terms
A Glossary of EDGAR Terms
- Accession Number
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From the EDGAR Filer Manual:
A unique number generated by EDGAR for each electronic submission. EDGAR reports accession numbers in acceptance/suspense messages to you. The accession number consists of three elements: the filer's login CIK (10 digits), the year (2 digits), and a sequence number (six digits, to a maximum of 999,998) For example: 0000350001-99-000256. Accession numbers are automatically displayed when you send a submission using Modernized EDGARLink, whether or not EDGAR ultimately accepts the submission.
Always keep track of accession numbers. They act as receipts that the EDGAR system has received the submitted filing.
- ASCII
-
From the EDGAR Filer Manual:
This abbreviation stands for the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is a binary code used by the computer to represent characters.
The ASCII text format is extremely limited. It contains no font information, nor styling information such as bold, underline, or italics.
- ASCII/SGML
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From the EDGAR Filer Manual:
This is our term for SGML documents in ASCII format that differ from the new HTML document format that EDGAR also supports.
ASCII formatted documents cannot contain links, images, nor any text styling. Document width is limited to 80 characters for text and 130 characters for tables.
- EDGAR
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EDGAR stands for Electronic Data Gathering and Retrieval and is the system through which the SEC accepts electronic transmission of submissions from filers.
From the EDGAR Filer Manual:
EDGAR provides an electronic filing process for filers and filing agents submitting documents under the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, and the Investment Company Act of 1940…
- HTML
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From the EDGAR Filer Manual:
This abbreviation stands for the HyperText Mark-up Language. It is a mark-up language used to create documents that are portable from one platform type to another. HTML documents are ASCII documents with generic tags that are appropriate for representing information from a wide range of applications. EDGAR accepts a subset of the tags from the HTML 3.2 standard, as recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
It is important to note that the HTML accepted by the SEC is a very strict and limited subset of the overall HTML standard.
- SGML
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From the EDGAR Filer Manual:
This abbreviation stands for the Standard Generalized Mark-up Language. It is an accepted standard, set forth by International Standard ISO 8879, which allows entities to define tagging constructs that convey and capture specific information.
- XBRL
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From the EDGAR Filer Manual:
This abbreviation stands for Extensible Business Reporting Language. XBRL is an XML-based language that is being developed by an international consortium. It provides a standard approach that filers can use to prepare, publish, exchange, and analyze business reports and statements.
