Annual report search is the job of finding one specific figure or statement inside a company's annual reports, and it works better when you search by the concept you mean (for example "capital expenditures") and pin the fiscal year, rather than typing a keyword into ten separate PDFs. We run this kind of search across 7,000+ US and Nordic listed companies and link every figure back to the filing it came from.
This guide shows the method on a real case: one line item, capital expenditures at Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT), traced across ten fiscal years of Form 10-K filings, plus one passage from the latest 10-K that explains the trend.
Why keyword search fails across ten years of annual reports
A keyword search for "capital expenditures" in one annual report usually finds dozens of hits: the cash flow statement, the MD&A, risk factors, segment notes and footnotes. Across ten reports that becomes hundreds of hits, and three problems appear.
- Labels drift. The same concept is "additions to property and equipment" in one year and "capital expenditures" in another. A keyword misses one of them.
- Periods overlap. Each 10-K repeats two or three prior years as comparatives, so the same year shows up in several documents, sometimes restated.
- Fiscal years are not calendar years. Microsoft's fiscal year ends on 30 June, so "2026" means the year ended 30 June 2026.
Concept search solves the first problem: the query is matched on meaning, and on the US side each figure is tied to a standard XBRL tag. Pinning the period solves the other two.
Search by concept, then pin the fiscal year
Name the figure, not the words
Ask for "capital expenditures" or "operating cash flow". On the US side we map it to the reported XBRL tag, here PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment, whatever the line is called in a given year.
Pin the company's own fiscal year
Use the fiscal year and check the period end date that comes back. For Microsoft every annual figure carries a period end of 30 June.
Open the filing behind the number
Each value carries the accession number of the 10-K it came from and a link to the filing on SEC EDGAR, so the figure can be checked in one click.
In Claude or ChatGPT this is a single question covering ten annual periods. On clarifo.com the same series sits on the company page, and through the Data API it is one call to the financials endpoint.
Worked example: Microsoft capital expenditures, FY2017 to FY2026
The table shows Microsoft's revenue, operating cash flow and capital expenditures for selected fiscal years, as reported in its 10-K filings, in USD millions.
| Fiscal year (ended 30 June) | Revenue | Operating cash flow | Capital expenditures |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2017 | 96,571 | 39,507 | 8,129 |
| FY2020 | 143,015 | 60,675 | 15,441 |
| FY2022 | 198,270 | 89,035 | 23,886 |
| FY2024 | 245,122 | 118,548 | 44,477 |
| FY2025 | 281,724 | 136,162 | 64,551 |
| FY2026 | 331,839 | 182,935 | 115,948 |
Source: Microsoft Corporation Form 10-K filings, FY2017–FY2026, via SEC EDGAR XBRL (tag PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment for capital expenditures). USD millions.1
Two readings come straight from the series. Capital expenditures were USD 8,129 million in FY2017 and USD 115,948 million in FY2026. Measured against operating cash flow, capital expenditures took about 21% in FY2017 and about 63% in FY2026 (our calculation from reported figures: 8,129 / 39,507 and 115,948 / 182,935).
A year's figure does not always come from that year's own 10-K. Our FY2024 values come from the FY2026 10-K (accession 0001193125-26-323660), the latest filing that reports FY2024 as a comparative. Using the latest report of a period picks up restatements; the original FY2024 10-K (accession 0000950170-24-087843) is still linked for anyone who wants the as-first-reported number.
Find the passage that explains the figure
A number tells you what changed; the annual report text tells you why. The second half of annual report search is finding that passage, which our filing content search does by meaning within one company and one fiscal year. Asked about capital expenditures and AI infrastructure in Microsoft's FY2026 10-K, it finds the MD&A page that compares FY2026 with FY2025.
"Revenue increased $50.1 billion or 18% driven by growth in Microsoft Cloud."
The same page states that "Microsoft Cloud gross margin percentage decreased to 66% driven by continued investments in AI infrastructure and growing AI product usage, offset in part by efficiency gains in Azure and Microsoft 365 Commercial cloud."2 The citation opens Item 7 of the 10-K on SEC EDGAR at page 37, with the sentence highlighted.
The passage also lets you check the series. FY2026 revenue minus FY2025 revenue in the table is USD 50,115 million (our calculation from reported figures), which matches the USD 50.1 billion increase stated in the text.
Run the same annual report search in Claude, ChatGPT or the API
You can run this workflow in three places: on clarifo.com, inside Claude or ChatGPT through our read-only MCP app, or through the Data API (REST and JSON, with an OpenAPI spec). A prompt that reproduces this example:
Using Clarifo, get Microsoft's capital expenditures and operating cash flow for the last ten fiscal years and show the period end date for each year. Then find the passage in the FY2026 10-K that explains the change in Microsoft Cloud gross margin, and cite it with the page link.
The same pattern works for Nordic companies on Nasdaq Helsinki and Nasdaq Stockholm, where the source is the annual report PDF and the citation opens the rendered page. For a longer walk-through of research workflows in Claude, see how to use Clarifo in Claude for company research. For the data behind these searches, see our note on the equity research data platform.
Search ten years of annual reports by concept and open the filing behind every figure.
- Microsoft Corporation, Form 10-K filings for FY2017–FY2026 (fiscal years ended 30 June), SEC EDGAR XBRL facts. FY2026 10-K: accession 0001193125-26-323660; FY2024 10-K: accession 0000950170-24-087843; FY2020 10-K: accession 0001564590-20-034944.
- Microsoft Corporation, FY2026 Form 10-K, Item 7 (MD&A), p. 37: SEC EDGAR.
Not investment advice. Figures are based on data reported by the companies.