One Quarter, Three Number Sets: Audit an AI-Written Earnings Summary

Audit AI-written earnings summaries against exact SEC filings, metric definitions, periods, units, reconciliations, guidance, and accountable human review.

Fluent Financial Copy Can Still Reconcile to Nothing

An AI assistant can turn a quarterly filing, earnings release, slide deck, and call transcript into polished prose in minutes. The result may look efficient while quietly combining three different number sets. Revenue may come from the filed quarterly report, adjusted margin from a release, and a growth explanation from prepared remarks. The draft may then compare the current quarter with a year-to-date period, call a percentage-point change a percent increase, or present management’s explanation as an established cause.

This workflow is for editorial and communications review of already-public U.S. public-company earnings materials. It is not investment advice, accounting advice, securities-law advice, legal advice, an audit, or a substitute for a qualified accountant, disclosure counsel, investor-relations professional, or the organization’s controls. Do not place material nonpublic information, unreleased results, draft filings, confidential forecasts, board material, or other restricted data into an AI system. If the approved public source packet is not sufficient, mark the gap and stop.

1. Freeze the Issuer, Period, Filing, and Public Cutoff

Create a source identity card before asking AI to summarize anything. Record the registrant’s exact legal name, Central Index Key when relevant, ticker only as a convenience, fiscal year end, reporting period, form type, filing date, acceptance timestamp, accession number, amendment status, and the URL of the filing detail page. A familiar brand name or ticker is not enough: similarly named entities, parent companies, subsidiaries, predecessor entities, and multiple share classes can lead a search or model to the wrong record.

Use the SEC’s public EDGAR filing search to locate the exact submission and its documents. Distinguish the period of report from the date filed and the time accepted. Record whether you are reviewing a Form 10-Q, Form 10-K, Form 8-K, an amendment such as a 10-Q/A or 10-K/A, or another submission. The SEC’s guide to reading a Form 10-K is useful orientation, but it does not turn an annual report into a certification by the SEC; the company prepares and files the report.

Set a public-information cutoff with an exact date, time, and time zone. List every artifact publicly available by that cutoff and exclude later corrections or commentary from a version that claims to represent the earlier moment. If the summary will be refreshed, give the refresh a new version and cutoff rather than silently changing the evidence beneath old prose.

2. Build a Status-Labeled Packet, Not a Universal Source Hierarchy

An earnings package can include a 10-Q or 10-K, a Form 8-K and Item 2.02 exhibit, an issuer release, an investor deck, prepared remarks, and a call transcript or replay. Do not impose one universal hierarchy that pretends every issuer publishes these artifacts in the same order or with the same legal status. Instead, label what each artifact is, who issued it, when it became public, whether it was filed or furnished, and which claims it actually contains.

The current Form 8-K identifies Item 2.02 as “Results of Operations and Financial Condition” and describes furnishing certain public announcements or releases about a completed fiscal period. Read the submission and exhibit rather than assuming that a newsroom page, copied PDF, or transcript is identical to what was furnished. Likewise, do not assume that every deck is an exhibit or that every third-party transcript is complete, corrected, or issuer-approved.

Keep an artifact register with the document title, source URL, accession and exhibit number where applicable, publication time, retrieved time, file hash or stored immutable copy under approved controls, status label, and notes about replacements. If two issuer materials differ, preserve the conflict. Do not let AI merge them into an apparently coherent “latest” statement until a responsible reviewer determines what changed and which version the summary is meant to cover.

3. Turn the Draft Into a Fact Ledger

Reviewing prose from top to bottom makes it too easy to miss a swapped denominator or qualifier. Break every factual sentence into ledger entries. Each entry should contain a claim ID; proposed wording; issuer and reporting period; exact metric label; GAAP, non-GAAP, or operating-metric classification; quarter, year-to-date, or other period basis; comparator; unit, scale, currency, and sign; reported and comparison values; calculated change; source document, section, table, page, and row or tag locator; verification time; reviewer; and status.

Use statuses such as VERIFIED, MANAGEMENT ATTRIBUTION, REVIEWER INFERENCE, CONTEXT, UNKNOWN, and CONFLICT. A citation is not a status. “Source found” does not mean the source supports the entire sentence, and a matching number does not validate the draft’s period, comparison, cause, or adjective.

4. Preserve the Metric’s Exact Name and Accounting Basis

Start with the label the issuer uses. Revenue, net sales, bookings, billings, annual recurring revenue, remaining performance obligations, gross profit, operating income, adjusted operating income, EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA are not interchangeable. Some are GAAP measures, some are non-GAAP financial measures, and some may be operating or statistical metrics. The classification and definition must come from the applicable issuer material and qualified review, not from a model’s general knowledge.

For every metric, capture the definition and any stated changes from prior periods. Preserve whether a total is consolidated or belongs to a segment, geography, product line, or continuing operation. Check whether discontinued operations, acquisitions, divestitures, or recast segments affect comparability. Do not add a segment result to a consolidated sentence simply because both use the word “revenue.” Do not describe income from continuing operations as total net income.

For per-share measures, record basic or diluted, GAAP or non-GAAP, the class of security when relevant, and the period. Diluted earnings per share is not merely net income divided by a share count copied from another table. Quote the reported measure and let qualified finance or accounting reviewers own any reconstruction.

5. Lock Period, Comparator, Unit, Scale, Currency, and Sign

A quarter and a year-to-date period can end on the same date while measuring different spans. Label three months, six months, nine months, fiscal quarter, fiscal year, trailing period, and point-in-time balance exactly. Confirm whether the comparator is the prior-year quarter, immediately preceding quarter, prior-year year-to-date period, year end, or another stated baseline. A draft that says “year over year” must identify values from matching period types.

Record units exactly: dollars, thousands, millions, billions, shares, users, basis points, percentage points, or another unit. Preserve the currency and any stated translation basis. A value displayed as 480 in a table headed “dollars in millions” is not $480. A parenthetical loss, negative sign, or cash outflow must not disappear during extraction. Keep precision consistent with the source rather than adding false decimal accuracy.

Use the SEC’s Inline XBRL viewer as one cross-check where tagged facts are available. Its fact details can expose context such as period and unit. Still compare the tag, rendered table, label, footnote, and surrounding disclosure. Extensions, dimensions, presentation, scaling, and tagging choices require interpretation; a machine-readable fact is not permission to ignore the human-readable filing.

6. Recalculate Changes Without Inventing Precision

When the source reports both values and a change, recompute the change as a check. When it does not report a change, label your calculation as reviewer-derived and retain the formula, inputs, full available precision, and rounding rule. Do not reverse-engineer an unpublished input from a rounded percentage. A small difference may be rounding rather than an error, but the ledger should show why.

Keep percent change separate from percentage-point change. A margin moving from 20% to 22% increased by two percentage points, or 200 basis points, while its relative increase is 10%. Those are different statements. Confirm whether the issuer expresses margin movement in points or basis points and do not silently convert one framing into another. Apply the same discipline to tax rates, churn, conversion, utilization, and other percentages.

7. Keep Non-GAAP and Operating Measures Attached to Their Definitions

Non-GAAP labels can look familiar while definitions differ by issuer or change over time. Record the exact name, directly comparable GAAP measure identified by the issuer, reconciliation location, adjustments, period, and stated reason or context for use. The SEC’s current non-GAAP Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations discuss misleading adjustments, recognition and measurement questions, prominence, reconciliation presentation, and other recurring issues. They are a review source, not a replacement for organization-specific accounting and legal judgment.

Do not reconstruct a missing reconciliation, invent the tax effect of an adjustment, or infer that an issuer’s “adjusted” measure follows a standard formula. Do not remove recurring charges merely because another company excludes them. If the comparable GAAP measure, reconciliation, or necessary context is absent or unclear, keep the non-GAAP claim out of the summary or place it on HOLD for qualified review.

Presentation matters as well as arithmetic. Do not lead with a favorable adjusted measure while burying a materially different GAAP result. Preserve the issuer’s qualifications and keep GAAP and non-GAAP results clearly labeled. When summarizing an operating metric such as subscribers, units, or retention, verify the issuer’s definition, population, measurement date, and any methodology change instead of automatically calling it GAAP or non-GAAP.

Constant-currency and organic growth also require issuer-specific definitions. Capture the stated currency rates, excluded effects, acquisition or divestiture treatment, and period basis when disclosed. Never apply a generic “constant currency” formula learned from another issuer. If the method cannot be reproduced from the public explanation, report only what the issuer states, with attribution and limitations.

8. Separate Reported Results, Management Explanations, and Inference

Numbers answer what was reported; they do not automatically answer why it happened. Label statements from management as attribution: “management attributed the change to…” is different from “the change was caused by…”. Prepared remarks, MD&A, and answers during a call may offer different levels of detail. Record the exact speaker or document and avoid stitching fragments into a stronger causal conclusion.

A reviewer may observe a pattern, but that is an inference unless an approved source supports it. “Margin declined while input costs increased” does not establish that input costs caused the decline. Keep reviewer analysis outside a neutral summary unless the audience, policy, evidence, and qualified owners allow it, and label it so a reader can distinguish issuer disclosure from editorial interpretation.

9. Treat Guidance as a Bounded Forward-Looking Claim

For guidance, record the exact metric, range or point value, fiscal period, GAAP or non-GAAP basis, currency, assumptions, exclusions, and the document and time in which it was issued. Distinguish issuing, reaffirming, raising, lowering, narrowing, widening, withdrawing, or declining to provide guidance. Verify that the comparison is against the immediately relevant prior guidance version, not an older headline.

Do not calculate a midpoint unless the editorial policy permits a clearly labeled calculation and the range supports it. Never turn a range into a promise, extend quarterly guidance to a full year, or combine revenue guidance from one version with margin guidance from another. Preserve any disclosed inability to reconcile forward-looking non-GAAP measures and the issuer’s stated reason; do not ask AI to manufacture unavailable adjustments.

10. Resolve Amendments, Restatements, Corrections, and Conflicts

Before release, search the issuer’s subsequent EDGAR submissions through the chosen cutoff. Check for amended forms, corrected exhibits, non-reliance disclosures, restatement discussion, updated slides, and issuer corrections. An original filing remains part of the record, but a summary should not present superseded figures as current without explaining the version and purpose.

Record conflicts as pairs: source A says what, source B says what, when each became public, and which claim is affected. Do not let a model decide that the later timestamp automatically wins. A difference may reflect a correction, a different period, a changed definition, a presentation choice, or an error. The finance or accounting owner and disclosure or investor-relations owner must resolve the treatment.

Return HOLD when the issuer or period cannot be fixed; accession or exhibit identity is uncertain; a material amendment has not been incorporated; quarter and year-to-date figures are mixed; scale, currency, or sign is unresolved; a reconciliation is missing; guidance versions conflict; an unofficial transcript is the only support for a material claim; or a required owner has not approved the exact draft.

11. Give AI Only an Approved Public Evidence Packet

AI may help organize public facts, propose a structure, compare ledger fields, or improve readability. It must not receive material nonpublic information or unreleased data. Use only systems approved for the organization’s data classification and disclosure controls. Strip hidden document metadata, comments, tracked changes, access tokens, personal information, and confidential annotations before any permitted upload.

Provide a bounded ledger rather than a folder dump. Tell the model to preserve exact labels, periods, units, source locators, and status markers; never fill a missing field; and output UNKNOWN or VERIFY when support is absent. Require it to keep management attribution explicit, avoid investment conclusions, and make no calculation unless the formula and approved inputs are supplied.

Then verify the output independently. NIST’s Generative AI Profile describes confabulation and information-integrity risks, including confidently presented false content. A model’s agreement with the reviewer is not independent evidence. Map every factual sentence back to the ledger, reopen the exact source, and confirm the complete claim.

12. Assign Review Owners and Record RELEASE or HOLD

Name owners before drafting. A finance or accounting reviewer owns metric identity, accounting basis, periods, calculations, reconciliations, and consistency with the financial statements. A disclosure or investor-relations reviewer owns the public cutoff, artifact status, management attribution, guidance, audience, and consistency with approved communications. Legal or other specialist review may be required under organization policy, but this workflow does not decide that requirement.

The release record should identify the exact draft hash or version, ledger version, source packet, public cutoff, reviewers, unresolved limitations, intended channel, approval time, correction owner, and re-review triggers. RELEASE applies only to that package. New filings, amended exhibits, restatements, corrected releases, guidance updates, or material issuer clarification require a new check.

A Fictional Reconciliation: Three Plausible Numbers, One Defensible Draft

Consider fictional Harbor Lamp Systems. Its AI draft says: “Third-quarter revenue jumped 18% to $520 million, adjusted operating margin expanded 10%, and management raised full-year earnings guidance to $2.40.” Every fragment resembles language that could appear in an earnings package. The ledger shows why the sentence cannot be released.

The 10-Q reports $520 million of revenue for the nine months ended September 30, not the third quarter. The quarter’s revenue is $184 million, compared with $170 million in the prior-year quarter. The furnished earnings-release exhibit highlights 18% constant-currency growth for one international segment, using the issuer’s stated currency method. Neither 18% nor $520 million describes consolidated quarterly revenue. A correct summary keeps the $184 million consolidated quarter result with its matching comparator and treats the segment’s constant-currency figure as a separate, attributed claim.

The release reports adjusted operating margin of 22%, up from 20% a year earlier. That is an increase of two percentage points, or 200 basis points, not 10%. Ten percent is the relative increase in the margin rate, a different calculation that the issuer did not emphasize. The reconciliation identifies operating margin calculated under GAAP as the comparable measure and lists the issuer’s adjustments. The summary presents the GAAP result with appropriate prominence and retains the exact “adjusted operating margin” label rather than shortening it to “margin.”

Finally, prepared remarks give adjusted diluted earnings-per-share guidance of $2.20 to $2.40 for the fiscal year, reaffirming the prior range. The AI copied the top of the range, removed “adjusted diluted,” and changed reaffirmed to raised. The qualified reviewers return HOLD. The defensible rewrite says that Harbor Lamp reported $184 million in consolidated third-quarter revenue versus $170 million in the prior-year quarter; separately, management reported 18% constant-currency growth for the specified international segment under its stated definition. It reports both GAAP and adjusted margin with the reconciliation context, and says management reaffirmed adjusted diluted EPS guidance of $2.20 to $2.40 for the fiscal year. No investment conclusion is added.

Fifteen Questions Before RELEASE

• Do the legal issuer name, CIK, form, reporting period, accession number, exhibit, and acceptance time identify the intended public record?
• Is the public-information cutoff exact, dated, time-zoned, and applied consistently?
• Is every release, deck, transcript, and filing labeled by issuer, version, publication time, and filed, furnished, or other status?
• Does each factual sentence map to a ledger entry and an exact source locator?
• Are GAAP, non-GAAP, and operating metrics named and classified without substitution?
• Do period and comparator match: quarter with quarter, year-to-date with year-to-date, and point-in-time with the correct date?
• Are unit, scale, currency, sign, rounding, and precision preserved?
• Are segment and consolidated results, and continuing and discontinued operations, kept distinct?
• Are basic and diluted per-share measures and their accounting basis labeled correctly?
• Are percent changes distinguished from percentage-point and basis-point changes?
• Do constant-currency, organic, and other issuer-defined measures retain their exact disclosed definitions?
• Are non-GAAP measures paired with the appropriate comparable GAAP measure, reconciliation, prominence, and context without invented adjustments?
• Are management explanations attributed and reviewer inferences labeled or removed?
• Does guidance preserve its exact range, period, basis, assumptions, status, and version?
• Have the finance or accounting owner and disclosure or investor-relations owner recorded RELEASE or HOLD for the exact final draft?

If any answer is no, do not ask AI to smooth the gap. Narrow the sentence, restore the qualifier, locate the authoritative public artifact, calculate transparently, escalate the conflict, or keep the draft on HOLD.

Scope Notes and Primary Sources

• SEC: Search Filings and EDGAR
• SEC: Inline XBRL
• SEC: Non-GAAP Financial Measures Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations
• SEC: Form 8-K
• SEC Investor Bulletin: How to Read a 10-K
• NIST AI 600-1: Generative AI Profile

These sources support document identification, structured-data cross-checks, non-GAAP review questions, and AI-risk controls. They do not certify an earnings summary, determine applicable disclosure obligations, replace professional judgment, or make the workflow suitable for every issuer, audience, or jurisdiction.