SEC Filing Extraction

A 10-K filing is 80-200 pages of financial data, risk factors, management discussion, and legal disclosures. Reading it cover to cover takes hours. Extracting the specific data points that matter for your analysis takes minutes — if you know what to extract and how to structure the extraction.

The extraction prompt pattern for financial filings is domain-specific: "Extract the following data points from this 10-K filing: revenue (total, by segment, by geography), operating income, net income, cash from operations, total debt, cash and equivalents, headcount, and any forward-looking guidance. For each data point, provide: the exact number, the page/section reference, the prior year comparison, and any footnotes that modify the interpretation." The footnotes instruction is critical — financial statements without footnotes are misleading. A revenue number that includes a one-time acquisition adjustment means something different than organic growth.

1. 1. Define the Extraction Template Specify every data point you need before starting. Revenue, margins, cash flow metrics, debt metrics, growth rates. Each data point gets a row in the template with: field name, expected location in filing, prior period for comparison.
2. 2. Extract with Footnote Context Instruct Claude to include relevant footnotes for every extracted number. "Revenue of $4.2B includes $300M from the Apex acquisition closed in Q3" changes the interpretation of the growth rate from 18% to 11% organic.
3. 3. Cross-Validate Against Earnings Release Compare extracted 10-K data against the earnings press release. Discrepancies usually indicate restatements, reclassifications, or different reporting bases. Document each discrepancy.