Public filings or a financial data MCP server?
Let your agent retrieve European financial records, then check the source report. A practical way to reduce repeated retrieval and calculation work.
Start with our MCP workflow when you want an agent to find European company records and calculate from structured statements. Follow the original filing to verify definitions and accounting context. The ASML example shows the complete path, from retrieved inputs to a source-checked operating margin.
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Use each format for what it preserves
A report is evidence in its published context. Structured filing data makes selected facts easier to retrieve. MCP gives a compatible agent a way to call tools. These layers can work together: an agent retrieves a statement, computes a ratio, then opens the report to verify the accounting context.
| Route | Useful for | Work you still need to do |
|---|---|---|
| Original report or register | Narrative, definitions, reconciliations and direct source inspection | Find the right entity and version; extract and check values |
| Tagged ESEF / Inline XBRL | Machine-readable facts tied to reporting contexts | Interpret concepts, units, dimensions, extensions and report versions |
| Normalized financial records | Repeated queries and consistent field access | Check mappings, missingness, accounting basis and provenance |
| An MCP connection | Retrieving data within an agent session | Check the tools, source coverage and the agent’s calculations |
ESEF and PDFs are not interchangeable
ESMA’s ESEF guidance describes annual reports as XHTML, with Inline XBRL tagging for consolidated IFRS financial statements. The readable presentation and tagged facts coexist. A PDF may be easier to browse, but extracting its table layout usually needs different tooling.
Tags reduce some extraction work; they do not remove judgment. The same label can occur in several contexts, and issuer extension concepts may require a definition before mapping them to a shared metric. A PDF extraction also needs checks for units, column headings, negative signs and comparative periods.
For narrative questions such as “Why did management change its outlook?”, open the original announcement or report. A statement row cannot supply that explanation on its own.
A practical hybrid workflow
- Resolve the reporting entity and record its identifiers.
- Inspect coverage, then retrieve only the statements or disclosures needed.
- Follow the available filing reference and match the source period, units and measure.
- Read notes or reconciliations where definitions affect the result.
- Present the calculation separately from any interpretation, with source links and missingness.
Retrieve ASML’s latest available annual income statement and its matching filing reference. Keep the source period and currency. Calculate operating margin only if revenue and operating income are both present. Open the original report to check the accounting basis. If you cannot read the document, return the calculation with that verification step explicitly unresolved.Connect the MCP server first. A prompt requests an analysis; it does not guarantee that the required data exists.
Use MCP for repeated research
For repeated company research, start with our MCP workflow: resolve the issuer, retrieve structured records and let your agent calculate from the returned inputs. This reduces repeated retrieval and table-handling work. Keep the original document close for definitions and unusual accounting questions; the LVMH example shows why that step matters.
The LVMH example shows why an extracted measure still needs its original definition.
A tagged number needs its full context
For ASML’s 2025 calculation, the readable EU-IFRS statement uses millions of euros, while the extracted sample stores full EUR units. Both can be correct. A factor-of-a-million difference is a units problem unless the source says otherwise.
Also inspect whether a fact is an annual duration or a point-in-time balance, whether it belongs to the consolidated group or a segment, and whether a newer filing supersedes it. Selecting the first concept with a familiar label can pick the wrong context even when extraction succeeds.
Store the context with the value. That is the part of the workflow that makes a retrieved number useful evidence rather than an isolated cell.