Financial Performance Data is an accumulation of financial information spanning companies across industries. Statistics Canada extracts revenue, expense, and financial ratio data from the tax returns of incorporated and unincorporated companies. This information is then processed into various reports that analyze select revenue/expense items, balance sheets, financial ratios, and profitable versus nonprofitable businesses. These reports provide users with total expense, total revenue, specific information on 17 different accounts, and percent of revenue comparisons. Your clients can also pull up to 12 different financial ratios.

Financial Performance Data is useful for both startups and existing businesses. Prior to a new business starting, it assists in developing an expected cost structure based on similar businesses. Older companies utilize the information to compare operational performance, set benchmarks, and understand competitor cost structures. Historical data is available; the information collected dates back to 2012. Each company is classified according to the North American Industry Classification System, allowing users to search by their industry.

All businesses are divided into four quartiles. These groups are based on total reported operating income, which allows for users to search selected industries for companies of a specific size that meet certain benchmarked performance measures. For comparison purposes, this feature assists your clients in finding businesses with similar historical performance.

Financial Performance Data is accompanied by quality indicators. Because certain records are assigned values due to missing or incomplete information, some of the data collected is imputed so some information is considered more reliable than other information. Metrics of the highest quality (pulled directly from reviewed tax documents) are classified as excellent, while other data (such as donor-imputed figures of high risk) are to be used with caution.