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Background
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In my daily work I often need to get my hands on Filed Accounts for
companies ("company filings" with income statements, Balance sheets,
and a lot of other legal informations...)
When the company is quoted, it's a piece of cake to go the its website
and download the annual reports.
When it's not quoted, sometimes the company will file accounts,
sometimes not, depending on its size, strategy, country legislation
and habits, etc...

In the US you can find this on:
- http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html  (official
website of the Securities&Exchange Commission)
- http://www.10kwizard.com/
- probably a lot more exist...

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Question 
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In the U.S. small companies will hardly file/publish their accounts as
I believe there is not much legal obligation in this field.

1- Easy part :
What are the legal criteria (# of employees, activity, whatever...)
that make mandatory for a non-quoted company to file its accounts
(thus available at the SEC, like mentioned above) ?

2- Not-so-easy part :
Is there a way to find accounts even if they are not published on the
websites mentioned above ?
In other words, are there alternative sources of information ?


Many thanks,
Neoba

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 19 Jul 2006 07:47 PDT

neoba-ga,

There are a number of commercial services like Dun & Bradstreet, or
ReferenceUSA, who compile and sell information on companies, including
many smaller, private firms.

The information on the companies tends to be in ranges for annual
sales and number of employees.  They also report on a company's
credit-worthiness, history of defaults and the like.

Are you familiar with these already?  If not, perhaps they would be
your best source of info on unlisted companies.  I'd be happy to
provide details of accessing company information through these
resources, if that would be suitable as an answer to your question.

Let me know what you think.

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by neoba-ga on 24 Jul 2006 02:57 PDT

Thank you Pafalafa for this beginning of an answer, sorry I couldn't
answer earlier.
No I don't think a "walkthrough" to those types of website would be
what i'm looking for. Considering your answer and the other comments
below, I realise I may be looking for something that doesn't really
exist!

If I change my mind I will post a new question asking for some advice
on how to use those sources.
Thanks
Neoba

Privately held companies that do not issue securities are not required
to make public filings of the sort you would get from publically
traded companies.  You are unlikely to find anything on them.

Yes, nelson-ga is right-- those big companies are only publishing
their annual reports because they're publicly listed and have to
publish them for their stockholders. A small company will not publish
its annual reports-- there's no reason for them to do so and it would
probably not be in their best interest.

These two posters are correct.  Now, you may see SEC filings with the
SEC for a company that does not have a sti=ock ticker (it does not
have publicly traded stock) but may still file with the SEC because it
has public debt. (i.e. bonds) or some other security on the market.

If you do business with them, you can ask for financials, or even put
in your contracts that you need to see them (and they will insist that
it be subject to a confidentiality agreement)

Thank you Nelson, Keystroke and Ubiquity for your enlighting comments!