Standardized financial statements

The Infront Analytics platform aims at facilitating the analysis and the comparison of listed companies. As it is almost impossible to directly compare the financial statements for two companies because of the diversity of financial reporting, official statements need to be reengineered using a process called standardization.

Standardization process overview

Infront Analytics data providers collect and store every line item reported by a company on the income statement, balance sheet and statement of cash flow.

Mapping from company specific financials to standardized financials involves grouping like items together into a standardized model that is common for all companies operating in the same industry.

Another important aspect of the standardization is to separate nonrecurring from recurring items of income and expense in order to allow analysts to properly assess a company’s performance.

Dual data source

Infront Analytics offers the best global coverage on listed companies, with a particular strength in small and mid-cap firms, by combining fundamental data from two providers (WVB and FactSet). You can switch from one source to the other using the Source selector in the Financial Statements view under Company Data.

The depth of information available in terms of number of fiscal years and details of WVB company financials depend on your subscription package. For users entitled to the FactSet data source, only the main line items are available over a 5-year period.

Standardization benefits

The standardization process guarantees consistent ratio calculation and comparability across companies.

In high-end subscription packages (Analyst, Premium), calculation transparency for WVB fundamentals enables easy reconciliation of standardized items to reported financials.

In addition, users who subscribe the Morningstar Global Reports option can easily download the corresponding annual report from the Formula Viewer window.