Public record · definitions
What each number does not tell you.
Each official source answers one question and refuses another. This dictionary states both, field by field, on the same page as the field. Read the 'does not tell you' column before citing any number.
See also the methodology and match register. Cite a field with its source link and the pull time printed on the record.
28 fields across 14 sources · dictionary-2026-06
FMCSA SAFER Company Snapshot / QCMobile
Keyed on: USDOT number
Known limits: SAFER is a registration and inspection record. It carries no fault determinations, no insurance claims history and no shipper reviews. Most carriers have no safety rating at all.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDOT status | Whether the registration is active or inactive with FMCSA. | Whether the number is currently registered. | Whether the company is operating, solvent, or has authority to haul for hire — see Operating authority. | 7 days per carrier |
| Operating authority | FMCSA's authority status (e.g. authorized for hire, common/contract). | Whether for-hire authority is on file. | Whether insurance is adequate for a given load or whether a broker should use the carrier. | 7 days |
| Power units / Drivers | Counts the carrier itself reported on its MCS-150 form. | Approximate fleet size as self-reported. | Current fleet size; MCS-150 updates are required only every two years. | 7 days |
| Safety rating | FMCSA's rating after a compliance review: Satisfactory, Conditional, Unsatisfactory, or none. | The result of the last review, if one happened. | Anything about carriers with no rating — most have never been reviewed. 'None' is not a grade. | 7 days |
| Inspections and out-of-service % | Roadside inspections in 24 months and the share that produced an out-of-service order, with the national average. | How often inspectors ordered vehicles or drivers out of service. | Why inspections happened (some states inspect more), or whether violations were later dismissed. | 7 days |
| Crashes (24 months) | Crashes FMCSA recorded for this carrier: fatal, injury, tow-away. | How many reportable crashes were recorded. | Fault. FMCSA records crashes regardless of who caused them. | 7 days |
FMCSA Motor Carrier Census (data.transportation.gov)
Keyed on: USDOT number + add_date
Known limits: The census is appended over several days; the newest date is incomplete. A registration is not authority to operate for hire.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| add_date | The date FMCSA added the USDOT number to the census file. | When a registration first appeared. | When the company was founded, or whether it has authority or insurance. | 6 h day list, 24 h rows |
CFPB Consumer Complaint Database
Keyed on: CFPB registered company name
Known limits: A complaint is a consumer's account sent to the company. The CFPB does not verify the facts of each complaint or adjudicate it. Counts scale with customer base.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Complaints, last 12 months | Complaints the CFPB received and sent to the company, by date received. | Volume and direction versus the prior 12 months. | Whether any complaint was valid; how many customers the company has; anything about a company the CFPB does not list. | daily |
| Company response | The company's closure category: closed with monetary relief, non-monetary relief, explanation, or in progress. | How the company itself said it resolved each complaint. | Whether the consumer agreed, or what 'explanation' contained. | daily |
| Missed 15-day window | Share of complaints the company answered after the CFPB's 15-day response window. | Response timeliness as the CFPB recorded it. | Whether the response was adequate. | daily |
| Top issues | The CFPB issue category consumers selected most often. | What consumers were complaining about, in the CFPB's taxonomy. | Root cause; consumers pick from a fixed list. | daily |
FDIC BankFind and Call Report financials
Keyed on: FDIC certificate
Known limits: Figures are what the bank reported to its regulator. They are not audited by Alpha Covenant and carry no rating here. Quarterly, with a filing lag of about a month.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total assets / deposits | Balance-sheet totals from the quarterly Call Report, in thousands of dollars. | Size and its change quarter to quarter. | Whether deposits above insurance limits are protected, or whether the bank is a suitable depository. | quarterly as filed |
| Tier 1 leverage ratio | Tier 1 capital divided by average total assets, as reported. | A capital ratio the regulator uses. | Whether the bank meets any particular requirement or what supervisors concluded; supervisory ratings are confidential. | quarterly |
| Return on assets | Net income divided by average assets, annualized, as reported. | Profitability as filed. | Quality of earnings or one-time items. | quarterly |
| Noncurrent assets % | Share of assets 90+ days past due or nonaccrual, as reported. | Reported asset quality. | Future losses or reserve adequacy. | quarterly |
| Holding company (NAMEHCR) | The holding company the FDIC lists for this bank. | The parent as FDIC records it. | Anything about the parent's other subsidiaries; their records are not folded in. | daily |
Federal Reserve Board enforcement actions
Keyed on: Exact FDIC institution name
Known limits: Only Federal Reserve actions are read here; OCC and FDIC orders are linked to their own search pages. An order is a public regulatory record, not a finding by Alpha Covenant.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actions naming this exact name | Fed enforcement actions whose 'Banking Organization' equals this FDIC name, with effective and termination dates. | Whether the Fed issued an order to this institution and whether it was terminated. | Orders against a holding company or affiliate; OCC/FDIC orders; whether the conduct continued. | daily |
HMDA loan/application register (FFIEC/CFPB)
Keyed on: LEI, found by exact filer name
Known limits: HMDA covers lenders above volume and asset thresholds; a bank absent from the filer list may still lend. The formula excludes withdrawn, incomplete and purchased loans.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Denied share vs all lenders in state | denied ÷ (originated + denied) for this lender and for every HMDA lender in its home state, same year. | How this lender's denial share compares to the state, on the same formula. | Why applications were denied, applicant credit profiles, or whether any decision was unlawful. | annual, as published |
USAspending.gov
Keyed on: Recipient name as registered in SAM; UEI
Known limits: Obligations are commitments, not money paid out. An award is not a performance judgment. Recipients returned by name search but not equal to the name are listed as 'not counted'.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active prime awards (obligated) | Prime awards with an end date in the future and the obligated amount, for recipients whose name equals the searched name. | Current federal contracting footprint. | Outlays to date, subcontracts, or whether work was performed well. | 24 h shared cache |
| UEI / parent recipient | Identifiers exactly as USAspending publishes them from SAM. | Which registered entity the awards belong to. | Any relationship USAspending does not itself state. | 24 h |
CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities
Keyed on: vendorProject
Known limits: A KEV entry is about a product flaw with evidence of exploitation somewhere. It says nothing about whether any particular organization running the product was affected.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KEV entries, 12 months | Catalog entries whose vendorProject equals this vendor's name, added in the last 365 days, with ransomware-use flag. | How often this vendor's products appeared in the catalog. | The vendor's security posture, patch speed, or any customer's exposure. Larger product lines appear more. | 6 h |
HHS OCR Breach Portal (cases under investigation)
Keyed on: Covered-entity name as filed
Known limits: Only breaches affecting 500+ people appear; the entity reports the individual count itself; resolved cases move to an archive not read here. A report is a legal notification, not a finding of fault.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breach reports / individuals affected | Reports filed under this exact covered-entity name and the summed individuals as reported. | That the entity notified HHS and how many people it said were affected. | Cause, fault, whether data was misused, or the outcome of OCR's review. | 24 h |
CMS Hospital General Information
Keyed on: Facility name and CCN
Known limits: CMS facility data describes Medicare-certified hospitals; ownership type and star ratings are CMS's own categories, reproduced as published.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hospital type / ownership / CMS rating | CMS's classification and its published overall rating, where one exists. | How CMS categorizes the facility. | Quality of any specific department, or anything for hospitals CMS did not rate. | per query |
CMS Open Payments (physicians)
Keyed on: NPI
Known limits: Open Payments records transfers of value from manufacturers to covered recipients. It is a disclosure, not a judgment, and does not include rebates, salaries or non-reportable payments.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Payments received | General and research payments reported by manufacturers/GPOs for this NPI, by year. | What industry reported paying this provider. | Whether the payment influenced care, or payments below reporting thresholds. | per query |
openFDA — labels, recalls, NDC, FAERS
Keyed on: FDA-listed brand/generic; NDC
Known limits: FAERS reports are voluntary and unverified; the same event can appear more than once; a report does not establish that the drug caused the event. Recalls may be firm-initiated.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adverse event reports (FAERS) | Reports naming this product submitted to FDA by manufacturers, clinicians and consumers. | That events were reported and how many. | Causation, incidence rate (no denominator of patients), or duplicates removed. | per query |
| Recalls / enforcement reports | FDA enforcement reports and recall class for this firm or product. | That a recall occurred and how FDA classified its hazard. | Whether affected units reached patients or whether the firm was at fault. | per query |
Census Bureau — state & local government finance; ACS population
Keyed on: State code; GOVTYPE 001
Known limits: State-and-local aggregates for the fiscal year, published roughly two years later; no county or city totals are available from the API. Per-resident figures use ACS population with the formula shown.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue, debt, interest per resident | Census government-finance lines for state plus local governments divided by ACS population. | Scale of public finance relative to population and its change across years. | Fiscal health, creditworthiness or policy quality; a debt figure is not a rating. | as Census publishes |
SEC EDGAR
Keyed on: CIK
Known limits: Filings are the registrant's own statements. A late-filing notice (Form 12b-25) is the lawful procedure when a filing will be late, not a finding.
| Field | Means | Tells you | Does not tell you | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Filings and late-filing notices | Filing counts and NT 10-K/10-Q notices for the CIK the reader picked. | What the registrant filed and when. | Whether disclosures were accurate; whether a late notice signals anything beyond lateness. | per query |