FFilingLens

FILINGLENS / FIRST-TIME GUIDE

A number you can
trace back.

Use this when writing a financial note, checking a model input or investigating why two reports show different values.

1. Start with the fictional example

Choose “Explore a worked example”. Revenue for 1 January–31 December 2024 is 125 million USD in one fictional filing and 123 million in a later fictional filing. The difference is −2 million. We know the values differ; we do not know why. Fictional accession numbers are not clickable sources.

2. Load an actual SEC concept

Find the numeric CIK in SEC EDGAR. Enter it and choose a concept, such as Assets or NetIncomeLoss. “Try Apple total assets” loads a real public-data example. This is a US SEC dataset, not a global company database.

The site requests the official SEC companyconcept API. The displayed fetch time tells you when our copy was retrieved; public responses may be cached for one hour. If the SEC request fails, we show the failure. We never swap in invented or sample values.

3. Confirm the exact fact period

For a balance sheet fact, an end date is usually enough. For a duration fact, the start date is equally important. A quarter, year-to-date and annual number must not be compared as if they were the same measurement. Units must match too.

The default cutoffs are suggestions derived from available filing dates. Check them before comparing. As-of dates refer to when a filing was submitted, not when the underlying business activity happened.

4. Read all three possible outcomes

5. Follow the accession links

Each real-data source links to its SEC filing directory. Open the filing and inspect the relevant table, notes and context. Export JSON or download the plain-text source note for your review record. Source content and metadata may later be corrected by the SEC.

Coverage and limits

The beta covers eight common US-GAAP concepts. It does not merge different tags that happen to have similar labels, include every custom concept or segment dimension, calculate stock returns, classify restatements, recommend investments or send alerts. Some companies use different concepts, so a missing result does not mean zero revenue or missing financial statements.

Decimal differences are calculated exactly from supported numeric values. Unsafe large numbers and unsupported precision are rejected. Uploaded JSON is caller-supplied and cannot be authenticated by this tool.

Install the local MCP

You need Node.js 22+ and a compatible MCP host. Download the beta, compare its SHA-256 to the published checksum, then extract it. From the extracted folder:

npm ci --ignore-scripts --no-audit --no-fund
npm test
node src/server.mjs

The last command starts a stdio server and waits for a host; it is not an interactive chat window. Configure your assistant to launch Node with the absolute path to src/server.mjs:

{"mcpServers":{"filinglens":{"command":"node","args":["/absolute/path/filinglens-mcp/src/server.mjs"]}}}

Ask your host to use review_filing_change. If prompts are not supported, say:

Use FilingLens to inspect one official SEC companyconcept object. Confirm the company, concept, unit and exact period with me. Compare two as-of dates and cite both accession records. Treat missing or conflicting values as unresolved. Do not infer a restatement, a cause or an investment recommendation from the value difference alone.

The MCP performs no network requests or file reads. Your host must obtain and pass the source JSON using its approved capabilities. Its own fees and privacy policy apply. The package is tested with a real SDK client; every desktop host has not been separately verified.

Price and product status

The browser tool and internal-evaluation MCP beta are free. The €19/month workspace proposal is an interest test; saved notebooks, watchlists and alerts do not exist yet. No checkout is enabled.

Compare your first fact →