ledgerbase
MVP-limited ticker coverage. This is an early MVP — only eight tickers are ingested: AAPL, AMZN, JPM, MSFT, NVDA, TSLA, WMT, and XOM. Any other ticker returns no data.
Learn / Guide

How can I trace a financial metric to its SEC filing?

Every AVAILABLE LedgerBase metric traces to a specific SEC filing and XBRL fact — its metric identity, filing form, accession number, filing date, XBRL concept, and fiscal period. This is LedgerBase's core trust mechanism.

01

Direct answer

Call the metric’s /explain endpoint. It returns the same value your other calls would return, plus the exact SEC form, accession number, filing date, and XBRL concept the value was read from — the evidence needed to verify it independently on EDGAR.

curl -H "X-API-Key: $LEDGERBASE_API_KEY" https://api.ledgerbase.cc/v1/companies/AAPL/metrics/revenue/explain
02

What provenance requires

A normalized financial value is only trustworthy if it can be traced back to the filing it came from. Without that, a consumer — human or AI agent — has no way to tell a correct figure from a stale or misattributed one. LedgerBase attaches lineage to every supported metric rather than treating it as an optional add-on.

03

A real example: AAPL revenue

Verified response (AAPL FY2025 revenue):

{
  "value": 416161000000,
  "periodEnd": "2025-09-27",
  "fiscalYear": 2025,
  "xbrlConcept": "RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax",
  "taxonomy": "us-gaap",
  "formType": "10-K",
  "accessionNumber": "0000320193-25-000079",
  "filedDate": "2025-10-31",
  "qualityStatus": "AVAILABLE"
}
  • value / periodEnd / fiscalYear — the reported number and the exact fiscal period it covers.
  • xbrlConcept / taxonomy — the exact tag Apple used in its own filing, reported as filed rather than renamed or reinterpreted.
  • formType / accessionNumber / filedDate — which SEC form, which specific filing, and when it was filed, enough to look the filing up directly on EDGAR.
04

Direct versus derived values

Not every metric is a direct one-to-one XBRL read. Some are derived from other reported facts (for example, a computed subtotal). LedgerBase’s lineage distinguishes a direct fact read from a derived calculation rather than presenting both identically — see the Data Quality & Lineage topic in the API reference for the full status glossary.

05

Limitations and unsupported states

Lineage is only available for supported metrics, and only through the /explain endpoint — it is not embedded by default in every statement or listing response. A metric can also be LINEAGE_MISSING: a value exists but lineage cannot be confirmed, meaning it should not be treated as ready for automated use without manual verification.

06

Try it yourself

Run this same call from the interactive API reference’s Try It panel, browse supported metrics in the Metric Catalog, or go back to Learn for the hands-on walkthrough version of this guide and related tutorials.