About this guide
This interactive documentation is a guide to the data compiled and published as part of the “Financial Accounts of the United States” (Z.1) data release. These data are published quarterly about 10 weeks after the end of the quarter. The Z.1 presents the financial transactions and levels for sectors in the U.S. economy as well as selected balance sheets, supplemental tables, and the Integrated Macroeconomic Accounts.
The Integrated Macroeconomic Accounts relate production, income, saving, and capital formation from the national income and product accounts to changes in net worth calculated from the financial accounts. These accounts are based on international guidelines and terminology as defined in the System of National Accounts (SNA 2008).
Features of the Financial Accounts Guide
The tools and descriptions within this guide help users explore the structure and content of the Z.1. Importantly, it allows users to search for series, browse tables of data, and identify links among series within these accounts. It also provides descriptions of each of the published tables and information on the source data underlying each series. Although this guide is separate from the release of the quarterly Z.1 data, it is also updated quarterly and is consistent with the most recently published data.
The navigation options on each page provide access to Home, Search, Tables, Series Structure, Highlights, Code Changes, Enhanced Financial Accounts, and International Data Submissions pages.
The Home page allows a user to do a basic search of series names and descriptions for financial accounts series or to browse tables. The Search page allows additional search options. The Tables page lists all the published tables in the Z.1. From there, the user has access to information about a specific table. Within a table, a user can click on individual series names and view a “series analyzer” for that series. Each table also includes a text description, which can be printed or copied, and a link to a PDF of the table as shown in the official release. The International Data Submissions page contains some of the tables and SDMX files submitted to international organizations.
Each series is identified according to a unique string of patterned numbers and letters. The Series Structure page provides a breakdown of what the letters and numbers represent in series mnemonics. The relationships between different components of a series (for example, levels, seasonally adjusted annual rate transactions, unadjusted transactions, seasonal factors, and so on) are also described on the Series Structure page.
With each Z.1 release, major data and structural revisions are highlighted at the beginning of the publication. The Highlights page consolidates release highlights in a searchable format for all releases beginning with 2004q1. The Code Changes page lists changes beginning with 2009q4 to financial accounts mnemonics in a sortable and searchable format.