Harnessing iXBRL: Unparalleled access & analysis of UK financial data

Traditional financial data sources were dulling the competitive edge of our clients

Due to the manual processing and assessment of paper and PDF filings with Companies House, accessing traditional sources of UK financial data can involve long delays.

Mutual clients of Tech City Teams and our partner, Connel Data Limited, were among the UK businesses frustrated with traditional financial data sources, which lacked sufficient detail, particularly on smaller businesses, and were often outdated or delayed by several days.

These limitations made it incredibly difficult to get an accurate, up-to-date view of the market, affecting our clients’ ability to seize opportunities and respond quickly enough to market changes. These missed opportunities were leading to direct financial losses and dulling their competitive edge.

“Using traditional business data sources left us always a step behind. We wanted to know everything that businesses file, in real time.”
Greg Connell, InfolinkGazette

Access to real-time, granular financial data

We needed to transform the way our clients accessed, analysed and leveraged financial data from these traditional sources if they were going to compete in such a fast-changing market.

This required a cutting-edge solution capable of bypassing delays, breaking down data at a granular level, and handling iXBRL and XBRL formats (the standard for electronic business reporting) - all within 10 minutes of records being filed at Companies House.

These functionalities provide key decision-makers with immediate knowledge of any financial shortcomings, financial successes, and industry growth, and deliver crucial due diligence information infinitely faster.

Realtime Financials & DataNexus

In collaboration with Connell Data Limited and our sister data products company, Tech City Labs, we developed and implemented the Realtime Financials solution to directly address client frustrations surrounding traditional financial data sources.

The Realtime Financials dataset receives and processes filings as soon as they’re filed at Companies House. Within 10 minutes of filing, the data has been extracted, processed and categorised into a standard format. This means our customers get the latest figures days before anyone else.

Our data ingestion and cross-referencing platform, DataNexus, was deployed to integrate Companies House filings and process this data at scale. We further developed our technology to efficiently process and map iXBRL and XBRL formats - an essential requirement for this project - to ensure the most up-to-date financial data is accessible in minutes.

To account for our clients’ unique requirements, we added a mapping engine for customisable data outputs and integrated our data warehouse technology to issue vital alerts and reports.

Realtime Financials is now deployed across a wide range of applications, including:

• Credit reference: Realtime Financials can provide insight into whether a business's results are improving or the business is failing - before anyone else.

• Due diligence: The solution allows users to dig into detailed numbers. Gone is the process of trawling through hundreds of PDF pages to find the information you need.

• Marketing: Gain invaluable insight into which businesses are growing and what they are buying.

‘Data as a Service’ powered by collaboration

Realtime Financials was delivered as a ‘data as a service’ solution that allowed our clients to choose their preferred data consumption method, be that API, CSV download, daily reports, or direct integration into their own data warehouse.

We worked closely with Connel Data Limited throughout the project to draw from their extensive industry knowledge. We combined this knowledge with our technical expertise and data platform to ensure the delivery of a comprehensive, fit-for-purpose solution to the challenges of traditional financial data sources.

Revolutionary financial data access in just 10 minutes

As well as reaching the commercial objective of creating a compelling, value-add alternative to rekeyed data sources, the Realtime Financials solution has revolutionised the way our clients access, analyse and harness UK financial data in iXBRL and XBRL formats.

Our ability to process and map these formats in real-time to deliver data within just 10-minutes of filing further sets us apart from traditional data sources.

No longer 4 days behind the competition, the effects of slow business decisions on our clients have been removed entirely. Combined with a granular level view of data, they can now spot patterns and value they weren’t able to at a summary level to seize business opportunities and quickly respond to market changes.

Plus, the full coverage of UK businesses, combined with fully configurable outputs, makes Realtime Financials as flexible as it is comprehensive.

What’s next for Tech City Teams & Realtime Financials?

Our clients now recognise us as the trusted go-to source for data and intelligence projects, especially when it comes to harnessing iXBRL and XBRL technology.

By offering real-time, granular data, we have empowered our clients to make informed decisions and seize opportunities in areas such as credit reference, due diligence, and marketing.

With plans to expand our product range with more data sources to take cross-referencing real-time financial information to the next level, Tech City Teams is quickly becoming a UK-wide source for data and intelligence projects.