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I'm interested in compiling data about where money is moving -- essentially what businesses are paying other businesses and for what. This is to make a product that analyzes this data and helps users make informed decisions about the consequences of their spending. However, I have a background in mathematics, not business, so my questions are as follows:

  • Is there already such a data compilation somewhere? Perhaps multiple to be aggregated?
  • How much of such information is required by law to be public (if any). How much is usually available?
  • If there is a decent amount available, how does one go about finding it?

I know this is a very general question. I think a unified data source could potentially be very important, but I don't even know to what extent it is possible, or where to start if so. Any information at all would be helpful. Thanks.

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Have you looked at Factual.com ? They have a plan to aggregate as much factual data as they can. Maybe you'll find something of interest there. I like your idea by the way! – tucson Jan 30 '11 at 20:40

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In the U.S.-

  1. This data does not exist
  2. It is not required by law
  3. No US company would want you to have access to their data

At least some U.S. companies would consider thid data to be a trade secret and sue you if you published it.

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If the sentence "what businesses are paying other businesses and for what" is meant as generic and not specific to the companies, then it exist and is not trade secret. Say for example: how much companies pay Google for ads? that's in the financial statements of Google. No secret. In fact you can get loads of infos from publicly traded companies. – tucson Jan 30 '11 at 20:36
Yeah there appears to be tons of data on EDGAR registered with the SEC. But it is too general to be applicable to this goal... hm... back to the drawing board probably. – user6915 Jan 31 '11 at 6:38

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