About DivScout

Mission

DivScout provides investors and researchers with reliable, validated dividend payment data extracted directly from official SEC EDGAR filings. By processing XBRL data from the CompanyFacts and Submissions APIs and applying intelligent quality checks, we maintain a clean database of historical dividend information across 404 publicly traded companies.

Current Statistics

• 14,778 total dividend records processed and stored
• 14,001 verified dividends (94.7% quality rate)
• 696 low-confidence entries flagged for review
• 404 companies tracked across major sectors
• Average 36.6 dividend records per company

Data Quality & Validation

Our confidence scoring system applies penalties based on:

• Unusual dividend amounts that deviate from historical patterns
• Detection of potential annual totals vs. individual payments
• Missing or incomplete fiscal period metadata
• Data consistency across multiple SEC filing sources

Only records with confidence scores ≥0.8 are displayed by default in the dashboard.

Technical Architecture

DivScout is built on:

• Python 3.8+ for XBRL parsing and data processing
• PostgreSQL for reliable data storage
• Flask REST API serving validated dividend data
• SEC EDGAR APIs with rate-limited, respectful access
• Automated quality checks and batch data updates

Limitations

Important limitations to be aware of:

• Does not provide real-time data
• Cannot predict future dividends
• Limited to companies with XBRL data in SEC filings
• No comprehensive handling of special dividends
• Dividend date accuracy may vary based on source data
• Historical data only, not suitable for trading decisions

Open Source & Licensing

DivScout is committed to transparency and open-source development. The entire project is released under the Apache License 2.0, chosen for its permissive nature and business-friendly terms.

Why Apache 2.0?

We chose Apache License 2.0 because it:

• Allows free use, modification, and distribution of the code
• Permits commercial use without restrictive copyleft requirements
• Provides explicit patent rights protection for contributors and users
• Requires preservation of copyright and license notices
• Protects contributors from trademark issues

Open Source Philosophy

Financial data should be accessible and verifiable. By open-sourcing DivScout, we enable:

• Full transparency in how dividend data is extracted and validated
• Community contributions to improve data quality and coverage
• Independent verification of our parsing and scoring algorithms
• Educational opportunities for developers learning SEC data processing
• Trust through code auditability

Project Repositories

• Backend Parser: github.com/chonito7919/DivScout
• Web Dashboard: github.com/chonito7919/divscout-web
• Marketing Site: github.com/chonito7919/divscout-site