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LexisNexis Business Search Tips


Company Information | Accounting | Country Profiles | News | Additional Business Resources

LexisNexis for Business

LexisNexis can be used to find more than just newspaper articles from many different sources. As mentioned in the How to Use LexisNexis Academic® guide, LexisNexis also contains government, law, medical and business information. This guide focuses on using the business resource offerings. To access the business section of LexisNexis, start on the library's homepage and click on the link to the Alphabetical List of Databases. Select the L from the list or scroll down to find LexisNexis.

LexisNexis redesigned the search interface and streamlined the business search process. For the most part, it makes it much easier to find all of the relevant information without going to multiple sections of the site. To the right of the screen, there are links to the business searches: Company Dossier, Dossier: Create a Company List, Dossier: Compare Companies, Company Profiles, SEC Filings, Accounting, and Country Profiles. In addition, information on finding business news stories, previously listed under Business, is also included. The following sections highlight what you can accomplish using LexisNexis when searching for business information.

 

Company Information

Company Dossier

The Company Dossier represents the one-stop shop for all of the company information you need. Use the search form to find a specific company - if you're looking for all companies in a particular industry, use the Dossier: Create a Company List. Enter the name of the company, being as specific as possible (e.g. Ford Motor Company or Apple Computer Inc), or the ticker symbol for public companies. If your search returns too many results, you can use the options, such as selecting the location of the company, below the main search box.

The Dossier contains a wealth of information right at your fingertips, as it pulls from various sources to complete the report. The snapshot provides the highlights of the company, such as the basic directory information, SIC/NAICS codes, business description, executives, recent financials and current news. The Corporate Hierarchy section explains the company structure and tree, complete with subsidiaries and joint ventures, if applicable. The Financial Information section provides income statements, balance sheets and other relevant financials for the previous three years and the ability to download/save those numbers. The Legal and Intellectual Property Information sections offer links to searches for recent cases and patents involved the company. The References page lists the sources used to compile the report. The Custom Report function allows you to pick and choose which sections you'd like and then print/download/e-mail the customized report.

Now watch this in action! Check out the tutorial Just a Minute with LexisNexis: The Company Dossier

Dossier: Create a Company List

The Dossier: Create a Company List allows you to do just that: generate lists of similar companies based on any number of characteristics. Enter as much or as little information as desired in order to retrieve results. For example, to find in small and mid-sized companies in Milwaukee, select Less than $500 Million under Sales, Less than 2,500 under Employees and enter Milwaukee as the Location. The search returns approximately sixty companies.

The advantage of the new interface is the ability to customize and download the retrieved list as a spreadsheet. After you've entered your search criteria, click on the Search button. This will bring up a preview screen with a few of the companies that meet your selected characteristics. Click on the Next: Customize List button, which will show the attributes available to add to the generated list. After you've done that, click on the Update Company List to view the particular companies. The Download Company List button in the right corner exports the information into a spreadsheet file in which you can tailor to your needs.

Dossier: Compare Companies

The Dossier: Compare Companies function allows you to view financial information of public companies for a side-by-side comparison. Enter up to five companies or ticker symbols and then click the Compare button to the right. The next page will contain the assets, liabilities, income statements and balance sheets for the specified companies and allow you to download the table into a spreadsheet program.

Company Profiles

The Company Profiles search varies from the Company Dossier in that it returns the reports done by individual sources like Hoover's Company Records and Standard & Poor's Corporate Register. It is advisable to use the Dossier first, as the References section provides access to those reports.

SEC Filings

SEC Filings provides access to the required documents submitted to the Securities & Exchange Commission: annual reports (10-K), quarterly reports (10-Q), prospectuses, and other reports of interest to shareholders. Although the SEC's EDGAR Search could be used to search for SEC filings, you can search the full text of these reports dating back until 1987 in LexisNexis. Enter the company name or ticker symbol into the search box and then click Search.

 

Accounting

Accounting Literature

The Accounting section brings the prominent journals and reference sources together in one place. You can search through the full text of publications from American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and other journals, as well as the most current edition of the Miller Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) Guides. Be sure to check the box(es) of the correct source from the drop-down menu before you begin searching. In addition, the information button to the right of the source list will gives the specifics as to which issues/years are available for searching.

 

Country Profiles

The Country Profiles section provides access to reports on business opportunities all over the world (Federal Business Opportunities and World Business Opportunities), political risk (PRS Group International Country Risk Guide and PRS Group Political Risk Service), and economic & political news (BBC Worldwide Monitoring and Global Insight, among others). Select the country, report type and specific source and then click the Search button. The search for Economic & Political News may return too many results which can easily be avoiding by adding additional search terms to narrow the results.

 

News

Business News

With the new interface, the business news search has moved to exclusively under the News heading in the top navigational bar. The News search will come up, with US Newspapers and Wires selected in the Select Sources drop-down menu. Change that to Business News Publications, which will search the business subset of magazines and journals. Be sure to change the date range to be searched if necessary (previous three months is the default). Enter your search terms in the boxes provided and then click the Search button to the right of the screen.

Industry & Market News

Searching Business News will provide relevant industry and market news, but your search would contain sources from all types of industries. As an alternative, the Sources tab at the top of the LexisNexis screen is the gateway to finding specific industry sources to search. After clicking on the Sources tab, you have the option to either search for specific sources or browse publications by type, topics or industry. By selecting the Industry radio button, the menu of various industries appears below. Find the particular industry which fits the search criteria. Clicking a link to an industry will display the sources that contain information for that industry. Check the boxes to the left of the sources to search and then click OK - Continue in the left-hand corner of the screen. The following screen will provide a search box to enter your terms and locate articles within the selected publications.

 

Additional Business Resources

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