51 peer companies. Real numbers. One week.

The Problem

The director of corporate strategy needed to benchmark return on equity across peer utility companies. The process was manual: clicking through the SEC's EDGAR website company by company, locating each firm's financial filings, pulling the relevant figures, and building comparison spreadsheets by hand. Across 51 companies, this was tedious, slow, and repeated every time updated numbers were needed.

Like the regulatory team, this director had tried Copilot. The same pattern surfaced: the AI wouldn't retrieve actual source numbers. It estimated. It approximated. For financial benchmarking used in strategic planning, approximations are worthless.

What We Built

A tool that pulls financial data directly from the SEC EDGAR API, the authoritative, machine-readable source for public company filings. It calculates return on equity across all 51 peer companies and presents the results in a sortable table with ROE percentages, net income, average equity, total assets, leverage ratios, and trend indicators.

Each company has a detailed breakdown page showing current ROE, net income, stockholders' equity, total assets, debt-to-equity ratio, and a historical ROE trend chart. Below that, a calculation details table shows the exact XBRL tags and values used, with “View Filing” links that go directly to the SEC document.

Every number traces back to an actual filing. The formula is shown. The source period is shown. The link to verify is one click away. Nothing is estimated.

The Result

The director's reaction was direct. He appreciated the speed of delivery and the fact that every number came from an actual SEC filing rather than an AI estimate.

Why It Matters

The difference between this tool and Copilot isn't speed or interface. It's whether the numbers are real. Copilot produces plausible-looking financial data that can't be traced to a source. This tool shows you the XBRL tag, the filing period, and the link to the SEC document. For anyone making strategic decisions based on peer benchmarking, that difference is everything.

The Pattern

Three different organizations. Three different industries. One methodology.

Find the person losing time. Understand what's at stake. Build on primary sources and real data, not AI approximations. Deliver something that works, not a pitch deck.

That's what we install. One week of work. Every number traceable to a filing.